


How to Stop the Apocalypse and Fall in Love

by Jasontodd908



Category: Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fear, Humor, Jealousy, Love, Magic, Paranoia, Prophecy, spells, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24978532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasontodd908/pseuds/Jasontodd908
Summary: Zatanna Zatara is shown a horrifying future, one in which she and other members of the Justice League are corrupted by a foul interdimensional demon set on world domination. In other universes and time lines, the Justice League falls and their worlds are plunged into darkness. This outcome can be avoided in this world however, and Dr. Fate shows her the way to do it. Too bad it involves pitching woo at a man who's so paranoid he doesn't trust himself. Let's just hope Zee can work some of her magic. After all....the world depends on it.
Relationships: Dr. Fate/Inza, Helena Bertinelli/Vic Sage(past), Kent Nelson/Inza Nelson, Vic Sage/Zatanna Zatara, Zatanna Zatara/Bruce Wayne(past), Zatanna Zatara/John Constantine(past), Zatanna/The Question
Comments: 95
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**_The Tower of Fate_ **

Zatanna gazed deeply into the mirror, trying to take in everything and put what she saw in its proper place. Needless to say, it was hard to do when everything she saw was utterly horrifying. The Justice League corrupted, killing innocents and reaping their souls, turning on friends and lovers alike. 

And she was the start of it.

She had to swallow the lump in her throat at the fact that of all the heroes or heroines to be chosen to act as the demon’s lieutenant, she was the one he chose. She looks away and Dr. Fate covers the mirror, not wanting to upset the woman anymore. He remains silent however, waiting for the magician to speak.

“So...this thing? It’s from another dimension” she asks, wanting to establish a few key facts first and foremost. “Yes, and no. It exists on the plain of time and space itself, though thanks to the efforts of Daniel Hall it remains on the furthest reaches of those plains” he says. To anyone else it would’ve just been gibberish, but to Zatanna it made perfect sense. She nods her head, looking towards the older man.

“And in that dimension, that universe or timeline or whatever, it broke through?” 

A simple nod is all she gets in return. She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to come up with a plan to prevent that here. ‘If only he’d start telling me all he knows’ she thinks to herself. “We need to make sure that doesn’t happen here” she says, shivering at the mental image of what the creature had turned her into. How she turned on her friends and either killed them or brought them to the demon depending on his whims.

“There is nothing we can do” the helmeted man says gravely, causing fear to rush up the woman’s back. “What do you mean there is nothing we can do?” she shouts, desperate to prevent the calamity she had seen in the mirror. “Exactly what I said. There is nothing we can do. The monster will break forth into our world and wreak the same havoc and death upon us as we saw it do to that world. I will fall, and so will Batman and Superman, while you and the others will join him in his demonic army” he says.

He sees her open her mouth, the top hat wearing magician wanting to preempt him. He holds his hand up, gesturing for her to not speak or interrupt him. “Fate has willed it. This universe must face this monster and it may fall to its influence” he states.

The dark haired woman instantly picks up on the may part, and she feels the first inkling of hope well up within her. “What do you mean may? You need to stop speaking in riddles or I can’t help. If you even want me to help” she says glaringly, wondering if this was one of those points where Kent would seemingly let things happen to assuage the lords of order. 

“Exactly what it means Zatanna Zatara” he says, reaching over the mirror and pulling off the shroud once more. A mist appears, swirling about like the tendrils of a flame until a clear picture comes into view. It was of Gotham city, but not the one she knew. It was darker and more advanced in many ways, unfamiliar buildings dotting the skyline. “The beast will break forth into our dimension at a different time than it did in theirs” Kent states, and Zatanna gasps as the embodiment of pure evil steps into view. 

It was all clad in black, evil emanating off of it in dark wispy smoke. Behind him stood a legion of some who she vaguely recognized, and many more who she did not. “Ohh god” she says, her hand going to her mouth as she sees herself, or rather a demonic perversion of herself. “All you’re saying is that the same thing is going to happen but later? How does that change anything?” she asks angrily.

“Watch” he states, pointing back into the mirror.    
  
She turns her head and becomes curious as another figure steps out of the shadows. She wore a long flowing red cape behind her, though her outfit resembled Zatanna’s in many ways. She looked over at the creature, determined to defeat it as she summoned two orbs of the brightest light the magician had ever seen. She had to cover her eyes as the woman brought forth this magic, and as she looked away from the mirror all she heard were the shouts and screams of the demon and his makeshift army. 

She looks back, seeing that the light has dimmed despite the sound of the ongoing battle and notices that another figure has joined the fray, though this one was much more recognizable.    
  
The Question stood beside the young woman, still wearing his signature fedora and blue overcoat. His hair had begun to gray a bit, but that was to be expected a full twenty years in the future. The demon was on the ground, writhing in agony as the white tendrils enveloped and crushed him. The young sorceress was sweating as she worked at destroying him, while the creature’s minions swarmed about them.

She watched as her future counterpart comes close to the Question, her long tongue slithering out of her mouth and exposing her pointed teeth. “Come on lover” the other Zatanna teases, watching as the man seems to stiffen. “Don’t you love me anymore?” she asks, putting on a fake pouting face. 

“Dad, focus” the sorceress screams. “That’s not mom” she says.

“Ohh hush Carina, you’ll be with us soon. You have no idea how good it feels” she teases, still advancing on the unmoving man. “Zee..” he says, causing the Zatanna in the present to stop in shock. “Wait, so me and...the Question?” she asks.

“I don’t even know who he is” she says angrily.

Dr. Fate is unmoved by her emotional turmoil, and simply gestures for her to continue watching the image in the mirror. She huffs and turns back to it, watching with her arms crossed under her chest. She was uncomfortable with the whole thing. ‘Why did he show me all this?’ she asks, watching as the demonic her advances on the Question.

“I always will” he says monotonously, moving his hand behind his back to retrieve something from his pocket. The action goes unnoticed by Zatanna, but not by the young girl named Carina who had been watching her father over her shoulder. “Then come to me Vic” she says. “Come her and show me” she adds lewdly. 

“I want to…” he says, moving forward and placing his hands on the succubus’ waist. She seems to feel that she is about to win and becomes lax, not expecting an attack from the man. Carina however, is shocked and shouts out “DAD!”

The faceless man suddenly grips the woman tightly, shocking her as she had thought that he was in her grasp. “Sorry Zee” he says, bringing up a strange orb like device with his free hand. “I really am”.

The magician has no time to react as the orb is shoved into her, causing an electrical surge to encompass her entire body as well as the Question’s. Both scream in pain, the electrical field moving outwards to encompass the other corrupted heroes. “FINISH THIS CARINA!” the man shouts, the pain being even more than what he experienced under Cadmus’ care. 

The dark haired girl feels hot tears begin to leak from her eyes, but she turns away from her father and focuses on the demon, which now writhes around on the floor in excruciating pain, the white tendrils now penetrating deeply into his skin. “You took my mother, my friends, my family, everyone I loved you son of a bitch!” she screams, sadistically enjoying the act of causing the elder god pain.

“RELEASE ME!” it roars, begging and pleading as many of his victims obviously had. “RELEASE ME AND PLEASURE BEYOND IMAGINATION WOULD BE YOURS!”

“No thanks” she says resolutely, “I just want my family back”.

With those last words the tendrils push in deeply and interconnect within the creatures flesh before tearing outwards and utterly destroying its physical body. The death throes and screams of the former elder god are accompanied with a roar and the release of a multitude of white orbs, each of which begin to swirl and circle about the battlefield. The demons look upon the remains of their dead master in agony, not noticing as each white ball finds its mark. 

Screams of pain emanate about the battlefield as the souls of the lost are returned to their owners, causing their physical bodies to revert. Horns retract and fangs retreat, their bodies returned to their mortal form. Carina doesn’t see any of this however, and merely collapses onto her knees, exhausted from the amount of energy she’d expended on defeating the beast. She gasps in pain, but slowly comes back to her senses.

She stands, her cape billowing behind her while she spits scornfully at the puddle of goo that had once been the elder god. “Not so tough now are you?” she asks.

Behind her Zatanna opens her eyes, which have reverted to their natural blue instead of the demonic black that had overtaken them. “Whe...where am I?” she asks, looking up at the bright blue sky. She feels the chill in the air and looks down to see her nudity, instantly balking as she tries to cover herself with her hands. “Here” a voice says from behind her, fabric suddenly enclosing around her shoulders and wrapping about her body. She feels two hands settle on her shoulders and she turns to see Vic, his mask covering his face as usual. “Hi Zee” he says simply.

The magician is confused for a moment, but then it rapidly comes back to her. Everything. The infestation, the corruption, the taking of so many heroes. ‘You tried to kill Vic’ her mind whispers. Before she could further explore that thought his hand comes up and rests on her cheek. “I...I thought I lost you for a little while” he says, the raw emotion breaking through his carefully masked phrasing. She smiles, unable to stop the tears which quickly form a trail down her face. She buries her face in his chest, something he allows her to do while wrapping his arms about her. 

“You almost did” she says, blaming herself instantly for everything that had happened. ‘If you hadn’t been in such a rush’ she thinks, her mind fixated on the others that had been taken by the monster.

“Mom….” a voice from behind them interrupts, and she looks up over her husband’s shoulder to see her daughter. She seemed to be nervous, not wanting to take another step towards the woman. With disbelieving eyes she appraises her mother. “Is it really you?” she asks.

Zee can’t help but smile, her heart swelling with pride at being the mother to such an amazing daughter. “Yes sweetie” she says, slowly moving out of her husband’s arms as he moves to stand with her. “It’s me”.

The young woman rockets across the distance between them, thrusting herself into her mother’s arms, quickly being joined by her father who takes both of them close. “I thought we’d lose for sure” she says, chuckling against the two of them. “Not with you on our side” Vic says, holding the women tightly to him.

“How...how did you do it?” Zee asks, looking around as all the women who had fallen under the creature’s influence were back to normal, each searching the area for returned loved ones who had fallen in the fight against the beast. Many were alive now, people who had been dead.    
  
“Suirp Da” Carina says simply, causing Zee to look at her with a confused expression on her face. 

“What kind of spell is that?” she asks. “A spell of returning. Dad found it in the Tower of Fate. Just barely got out of there before Aunt Dinah got him” she says with a chuckle.

The conversation fades away as the mirror returns to its normal state, the mist concealing everything once more. Zatanna tries to make sense of what she had seen all over again, but somehow can’t find it in her to deny the truth.    
  
No. She could make this out all herself.

“In order for the beast to be defeated, a child must be brought into the world. A child raised by two archetypes” he says, drawing Zatanna’s questioning once more. “What do you mean by archetypes?” she asks. “Archetypes. People who fit into certain molds. Consider it a universal cast of characters if you will” Dr. Fate says, an uncharacteristic mirth in his voice. “Alright, so what character am I then?” she asks, already putting the phenomenon down as being akin to tarot cards.

“The witch” he says.

“Of course” she retorts, rolling her eyes and placing her hands on her hips. “And the Question?” she asks, wanting the second part of the equation. “He is the detective”.

“The detective? Well there’s more than one detective in the world” she says, her mind fixated on a certain past lover of hers. “Who’s to say that it isn’t Batman? Hell, all of us in the league can technically be called detectives” she accuses.

“Batman already fits another archetype. That of the martyr” he says, waving away her concerns and suggestions. “As for many fitting the archetype, of course, many fit, but they do not completely do so. Even Batman does not do what he does for the sake of truth. He is on his crusade for justice. Not truth”. The words come out slowly, as if the man was explaining something to a child. Zee decided that she definitely didn’t like that but she would let him go on due to deference in time spent with the league.

“The Question is the only one who has no true motivations other than truth” he says. “He lost his parents before he was born, and spent most of his life in solitude. That is not to say that he does not interest himself in justice, quite the opposite. He considers the revelation of truth to be the purest form of justice. Thus he fits the archetype perfectly”.

“And why was it decided that the witch needed to be the second piece of this puzzle?” she asks. 

“To give the Warden the tools she needs to defeat and keep the darkness at bay” he explains. “The Warden? What the hell is that?”

“The defender of this realm. One comes every century, and with the passage of time into this one, a new Warden has been selected and sent forth by the lords of Order. It has come to you and the Question to create her and raise her. Flesh of the Detective and the Witch” he says.

Zatanna instantly blushes upon realizing that she would have to have sex with a man she barely knew beyond a simple wave and face, or rather lack of face, recognition. “I don’t even know who he really is!” she protests.

“His real name is Charles Szasz, but he prefers Vic Sage. He’s a news reporter in Hub city” the golden helmeted man says in response. Zee sighs loudly and slaps her hand against her face, shaking her head from side to side. “Thanks that tells me alot. Let me guess, before you say anything, it’s a prophecy that’s…”   
  


“Set in stone yes” he cuts her off.

“Great, just great” she says before calming. She knew that prophecies were unavoidable, and in the end it would be better to go along with them. ‘Especially with that hellscape you saw in the other world’ she thinks to herself, shivering to herself in fear. 

“Is there any specific way I have to go about this?” she asks.

“There are a few items that must be put in place, items that the detective and with must work together to do so” he says. Zee puts her hands up and waves him off. “Alright alright, stop referring to us as the detective and the witch. It’s creepy. And what are these items?” she asks.

“I have assembled a list” he says, conjuring up the scroll with the aforementioned items already categorized and written on the parchment. Zee reaches out and takes it, grumbling to herself about being turned into a “brood mare and an errand girl”.

“Alright. So I’ll go tell Vic” she says, using his real name for the first time, “that we gotta do the nasty and..”   
  


“No” Nelson interrupts her.

“No? What do you mean no? I gotta tell…”

“If the detective knows that this is done by prophecy and prophecy alone, he will doubt himself and eventually you. This doubt will lead to the fracturing of your relationship, and the Warden will not be strong enough to prevent the end of days” he says.

“Great. Just freaking great. So I can’t even tell him and make this all a little easier on me?” she asks. “A little less awkward maybe?”

Kent turns his head a little, dropping the mysterious and aloof act for a moment to reach the woman. “Ohh so you think walking up to him and saying, “hey, let’s make a baby to save the world from an elder god bent on corruption” is going to make things less awkward?” he asks.

Zee puts a finger up and opens her mouth, hoping to be able to fight the man’s logic. Slowly she drops it as no words come out and she is forced to acknowledge the truth of the man’s statement. “Alright so I guess that wouldn’t work really” she says, rubbing her arm and wincing at a mental image of how that conversation would go.

“But how am I suppo…”   
  


“I guess the natural way” he says. “Seduction, growing close, dating and all that” he says, causing her to scoff. “The guy barely talks to anyone in the league” she says. “We only see him at meetings and during missions. All the rest of the time he spends in his room doing god knows what”.

“Well, you’ll have to be extra careful as to not rouse his suspicion” Kent Nelson suggests.

“Not rouse his suspicion?” she shouts. “The guy is the most paranoid man to ever live. Me walking up to him is going to rouse his suspicion. The man things that the girl scouts are responsible for crop circles and that rock n’ roll is satanic” she says.

“In his defense that last one is partly true” he says, sending the woman for a loop. She shakes her head and moves on, not wanting to delve into that rabbit hole. “Alright, whatever. Look, you put me in a very uncomfortable situation here. I have to go and seduce...ahh whatever. Alright. I guess I’ll...go and...seduce?” she says, feeling a lot less confident now that the words were out there.

“Time is of the essence” Fate says, urging her on. “How much time?” she asks. “Well, you need to have your daughter within three years. Otherwise she won’t be old enough or experienced enough to correctly use her magic and defeat the interloper” he says, settling on an apt name for the creature. 

“Alright so...soon. I guess I better get going” she says, scowling at the man while removing her top hat. She points it at an empty wall and hits the brim, saying “Rewothctaw ot latrop”, upon which a glowing green portal opens upon the wall. Without another word the young sorceress steps through the portal, leaving Nelson alone. 

“Well, that could’ve gone better” he says to himself, removing the helmet to reveal his aged and wizened face. He sighs and sits down, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Suddenly he feels a pair of hands on his shoulder, rubbing and kneading gently. He knows instantly who it is, and can’t help but feel some of that stress melt away.

“You know darling” Inza says, leaning in to nuzzle against her husbands neck. “You shouldn’t only be focused on baby making when the lords demand it” she teases. He smirks to himself and without turning summons a yellow tendril which wraps around the giggling woman’s waist, pulling her up into the air before depositing her in his lap. “Ohh? Do you think I can make those decisions without the lords then?”

She nods and smiles, placing her hand on his cheek and rubbing along his jawline lovingly.    
  
“Well, let me take some independent action then” he says, locking his lips onto his wife’s and ignoring the fear that had begun to coil at his gut. 

‘Zee and Question will handle this’

**_Justice League Watchtower_ **

“How the hell am I going to do this?” she asks herself for the eighth time, pacing back and forth in the hallway. “Could they have picked a worse couple to hinge the fate of the world on?” she asks herself before calming down. “Alright. You can do this” she says, mover her hands up to her chest and straightening out her corset. “Just try and act...natural. Yeah, natural” she says, smiling to herself before frowning and groaning in agitation.

“Seriously. You struck out with Bruce and John, though the second one is more Constantine’s fault than anyone else’s” she thinks, huffing to herself. “Cheating bastard” she says finally, making sure that the corset was straight once again, giving the Question a good look at her attributes.

‘Good thing I don’t wear pants’ she thinks, happy at having opted for fishnets. 

She moves forward and knocks on the door, waiting a full minute with no answer. She tilts her head curiously, deciding to do a quick diagnostic spell to see if anyone was even inside the room. “Hmm, yeah, he’s in there” she says, sensing a soul’s presence and sensing who it was by some of the errant emotions and thoughts she could pick up. “Lonely guy” she says, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the man she didn’t yet know, but would be getting to know very intimately soon enough. 

She knocks again, thinking maybe he hadn’t heard her, or that he’d been absorbed in something. She waits another minute and when she gets no response this time she sighs, muttering “screw this, we’re going loud then” under her breath before reaching for the door handle. She opens it, pushing it inwards and bracing herself for whatever she was going to encounter.

What she did see was unexpected, and certainly not as sinister as her mind had led her to believe. The room was messy, but one of those organized messes that made sense if you studied it long enough. To her right was a bed, unmade and disheveled and a large coat on top of it. To her front was a desk, the computer monitor still on and casting a blue light about the room, though it was littered by newspapers. On the wall hung a huge board, newspaper clippings and lines connecting them to one another littering the whole thing. 

What attracted her attention the most however was the flurry of movement in front of the bed. On the floor was a shirtless Question, pumping his arms up and down to lift his body in tandem. It soon became clear why the man hadn’t been listening, as two earbuds were loudly blaring into his ears. As far as she could tell it was some new form of pop music, though she wasn’t entirely sure. 

She was sure though that the Question, ‘Vic’ she reminds herself, wanting to at least call him by his name in her mind to get used to it, was a very attractive man. 

Her eyes trace eagerly over the lines and contours of his muscles, how they twist and move with his upward thrusts. ‘Well’ she begins, gulping at the sight of his sweaty yet very appealing body. ‘At least making our baby won’t be a hardship’ she thinks, wanting to smack herself for such a lewd and honest thought. 

“Ehh hmm” she clears her throat, hoping to get his attention. When it doesn’t work, she walks closer, reaching down to gently touch the man on his shoulder. He hadn’t seen her, but he knows shes there now. He jumps up, twirling backwards and assuming a combat stance that looked so fierce that even Zatanna had to back up, her hands raised comfortingly.    
  
“Woah, woah, easy tiger” she says, trying out being seductive. She tries to smile as well, and hopes it doesn’t come out looking like a grimace. “What are you doing in my room Zatanna?” he asks, slowly dropping his fists at the realization that she was a leaguer and thus not a threat.    
  
“Uhh well, umm” she says, the words she’d come up with slipping from her mind in her embarrassment. ‘That body on full display for you isn’t helping either is it?’ her mind asks, a sultry sounding version of her voice coming through.

He didn’t say anything, and was still watching her. Or at least she thought he was. It was hard for her to tell with him wearing that mask. 

“I...I need your help!” she says, having seen something on his wall about Romania. ‘Hmm, maybe he can help me wrap up a few cases!’ she thinks excitedly, happy to have a way in. “How is that when we’ve never spoken more than three words to each other?” he asks, his voice a flat monotone.

“Well we’ve spoken more than three words to each other now” she teases, watching as the man stiffens a bit before relaxing once more. He walks over towards his connected bathroom, seeming to pay her no mind as he grabs a towel. He sets it over his shoulders and looks back at her.

“Point taken” he asks. “But again, why are you coming to me for help? Multiple other leaguers would be before me in line for you to go to, plus I have very little experience in dealing with magic. So, answer my question please” he says.

“But you are the Question” she teases, leaning against his dresser and crossing her legs over one another while moving her arms under her chest. She was hoping to accentuate her curves and draw attention to them. ‘But his damned mask won’t let me know if it’s working or not’ she thinks feeling self conscious about herself for the first time in a while.

“I am” he says neutrally.

“Soooo...that must mean you have answers?” she asks, batting her eyes at him.

“Depends on what the question is” he says, playing along with their little word game.

She sighs and decides to get to the point, hoping that it wouldn’t be pulling teeth all the way through. “I need your help with a case I’ve been working for a long time in Romania” she says. “You’ve been looking for the lost diaries of Elizabeth Bathory” he says, sending the normally imperturbable sorceress into a state of shock. “How...how the hell did you know about that?” she asks.

“I didn’t for sure until you confirmed it” he says, his own arms crossing over his chest. She didn’t know if she’d heard right, but it almost felt like there was a teasing lilt to his voice. “Alright, alright, how did you even get into the ballpark with that one?” she asks.

“It’s simple really” he says, though she felt it was anything but simple. “You were looking at my conspiracy board. I couldn’t tell exactly, but at this point there was an eighty percent probability that you were looking at the right hand corner. It’s also the only area in which your eyes seemed to light up. They remained on that area for an exact five seconds longer than the others which indicates interest according to the average human beings attention span being slightly less than that of a goldfish, which means about three to four seconds. Five seconds hints at interest” he says.

Zee is shocked, staring at the man open mouthed as he dissected every one of her movements and what they meant. ‘Jeez, marriage is either going to be hell or heaven’ she thinks. ‘At least he won’t forget our anniversary’ she adds as an afterthought.

“As for how I knew that you’d be looking for her diaries…” he says, trailing off. “I remember you asking Doctor Fate about it in the cafeteria one day a few weeks back. Romania, plus asking one of the world’s premier, if not THE premier magician, equals you looking for the deceased Countess’ diaries”.

She didn’t know what to say, and instead remains utterly shocked at how quickly he had peeled her secondary cover plan apart. ‘Okay, brains and bod? Check? Annoying? Check? Cute already, even without a face?” she asks herself, adding a check to that last one. 

“Alright” she says. “You got me. I need your help tracking down the diaries”.

“Probably because I’m the only one who speaks Romanian and has some experience on the ground” he adds, causing Zee to chuckle. “Now you overplayed your hand mister. I had no idea that you spoke Romanian or have ever even been there” she teases.    
  
“Well I do” he says, as if she’d insulted him.

“Well then that means you’ll be extra helpful. If you decide to help me. About that, you in?” she asks. “Well you’re lucky I have an investigation open on a Romanian film actress” he says. “Probably has links to George Sorors. I’ll meet you in the atrium in half an hour. I need to shower first” he says, his body still soaked in sweat from his vigorous work out.

“Ohh okay” she says, her eyes unable to stop from roving over the man’s body.

“Umm. Showers are usually down...alone, without other people watching” he says, causing the woman to sputter in embarrassment. “Ohh yeah yeah, so sorry. I’ll umm, meet you in the atrium then” she says, backing up and smacking her rear end right into his desk. She winces, biting her lip as the edge digs into her butt cheek, leaving a mark and causing her no small amount of pain. “Shit” she says aloud, not meaning too but gasping even more as things begin to fall off his desk.

“Dammit” she says, kneeling down to pick up the papers and replace them on the desk. Question also moves down onto his knees, picking them up and assisting the woman. Eventually, stereotypically, their hands touch, and Zee blushes even harder at the contact. ‘Ohh come on!’ she shouts mentally, moving away to pick up the last few remaining papers from the ground. 

“Well, see you soon Q” she says, jumping up and rushing from the room, moving into the hallway. The Question stands, slowly moving to his feet as he watches the woman’s exit. “Hmm...what a strange woman” he says to himself, mentally adding, ‘and that means something coming from me’.

**_Justice League Atrium_ **

“Smooth Zee, smooth” she says to herself, regretting how badly the first meeting with her erstwhile intended husband had gone. Even that was something that was hard to swallow.

‘Never thought I’d get married’ she thinks, not exactly loathing the idea despite having to make it work with an as yet completely unknown man. ‘Bruce and I...well, that just never would’ve worked’ she says, feeling a tinge of sadness rise up within her. The thought of being Mrs. Wayne was something that was instantly appealing to her when she’d first met the man, but his only love would forever be the Batman.

The sadness returns at the thought of how her second most important relationship had gone. ‘John was nice...when he wasn’t cheating on me with every woman, and man, who smiled at him’ she thinks. ‘Which was..ohh, let me think, always’ she says. She calms herself down and sighs. She would always have a soft spot for the wise cracking, chain smoking blonde, but at the end of the day she knew he’d hurt her.

‘So what about Vic?’ she asks, hoping that he could share her name with him herself so she could stop calling him Question. ‘Well, Q works for now’ she says, chuckling as she thinks about that twitter hashtag Qanon. ‘Wonder what he thinks about that?’ she asks herself, before her eyes widen. ‘What if it is him?’

“Zatanna” a voice says from behind her, and she jumps quickly at being startled. She turns to find him there, mask, fedora and coat with his hands in the pockets. “Jeez Q, you scared me” she says, her hand going to her chest to feel her heart beat. “Ready to go?” she asks with a smile, receiving a simple nod from the man. “You’ll loosen up around me soon” she says openly. “So, how are we getting to Cachtice?” he asks.

“Pfft, figures you’d know where we were going” she teases, looping her arm through his. “And magic. Duh” she says, sticking her tongue out at the man before drawing her wand and pointing at the empty air. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asks, holding himself back. It dawns on her that he was nervous and it takes a lot out of her to not laugh. 

“Positively. Magic is quicker and doesn’t make you feel like you’re being squeezed through a straw” she says, patting his chest and murring at the muscle she feels beneath. ‘Well, at least the Lords of Order decided that he’d be ripped’ she thinks.

“Come on Q” she pleads, conjuring up yet another portal that would transport them where they needed to go.

“Quick, in and out. Thirty minute adventure tops” she says, causing the man to acquiesce. “Alright, let’s go” he says, letting the dark haired woman pull him into the portal. 

**_Three Hours Later, Bathory Castle, Cachtice Slovakia_ **

He had dived over the fallen bricks, desperately evading the jet of dark blood magic that shot over his head. He moves back, wedging himself against the debris of the castle above. He turns to the woman who was also hiding there, her wand in her hand and her top hat on her head.

He turns his head, staring at her with his face completely obscured by his mask. The jets of blood keep coming, followed by the maniacal laughter of the undead countess they had accidentally woken. “Yeah, yeah, I know, this didn’t go according to plan” she says, jumping over the bricks to shot a spell at the woman. The spell is instantly deflected by the vampire’s blood wards, ricocheting upwards and destroying part of the masonry above. 

“How was I supposed to know that the book was cursed?” she asks.

“Well I wasn’t going to know, so it made sense to suspect you’d know” he says, peaking out over the ledge and being met with another jet. “Alright, I have an idea” he says, picking up a brick and moving to the side. “Ohh yeah, what is it?” she asks. “I’m going to throw this brick” he says, as if that explained everything. 

She looks at him pointedly, expecting more. “And?” she asks.

“Ohh yeah, well when I throw the brick, she’ll drop her shields for a moment, giving you time to cast a spell” he says, causing the woman to nod. “All, we gotta spend more time together before we’re on the same wavelength like that” she teases, moving so that she was ready. “Get ready” he says, all business once more as he jumps up and runs, moving to the side and momentarily throwing the Countess’ aim off. A jet of dark red blood shoots past and into an adjacent hallway, the battle being waged in the catacombs of the castle. Vic wastes no time in chucking the brick as hard as he could, watching with satisfaction as it impacts against the ward, causing it to go down for only a second.

A second was all Zatanna needed. 

“Shup reh yawa” she shouts, the the vampire being thrown back against the stone wall with a sickening crunch. If she had been a mortal, she would be dead with numerous broken ribs. Instead she hisses in rage, glaring at the two in rage. “I’m going to feast upon you whore!” she shouts turning towards Vic who himself was rushing forward for the cursed diary that had started this whole thing anyway. 

“Q!” Zee shouts. “Grab the book. It gives you power over...ghhghkkk” she is cut off by the woman summoning her own magic, choking the woman out and suspending her in the air. She turns her gaze on Vic, her eyes turning bright red as the man stops. “Good” she teases, her long snakelike tongue slithering out over her fangs. “I have a thrall” she teases, looking at Zee. “And such a handsome one at that” she adds. 

“Fzzzkk youuu” Zee tries to get out, indeed worried that Vic had been put under the vampire’s power. “Fiiighhht Q….fiiizttt” she says, trying to get her words out. The Question ignores her though, focusing on the countess. “Yesss…” she slithers. “Grab the book my dear. Ohh yes such a handsome one” she says, watching as the conspiracy theorist moves forward and picks up the book from the ground.

“Nooooo” Zee moans, knowing that more than her life was at stake. If she and Vic died here, the world would never be able to fight off what was coming. 

“Ohh, is the little sorceress upset? Was this man yours?” the youthful looking countess asks teasingly and mocking, taking her attention of off Vic for a second. She doesn’t notice him beginning to move towards a one of the sconces, a roaring fire having been lit at some point by the woman’s magic. “I bet you’re jealous” she teases. “All the things I’ll be doing to him before he dies...ohh...no, you haven’t tasted of him yet have you? What a shame. I sense your desire too…” she begins before Vic finally makes it to the flame.

Zee smiles and nods at him, causing the resurrected Countess to turn her head and gasp at seeing the man with the source of her power so close to destruction. “NO DON’T….!” she shouts, but is too late. Vic tosses it into the flames, causing the vampire to drop Zee, who gasps and struggles for breath on the floor.    
  
The centuries old woman pays her no mind however, and rushes forward to save her diary from destruction. It’s too late though, the edges of the book have already caught and the pages begin to curl inward. 

She presses her hand to her heart, a look of pain marring her perfect face, twisting it into a grimace. All color slowly drains away, and her skin begins to crack. Her chocolate brown hair begins to turn gray, slowly at first before it is all quickly consumed by her rapid aging. “What have you done?” she screams, watching as her fingers age as well, her nails becoming long and cracked. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” she turns on Vic, advancing slowly. 

“Well, I burned the book” he states simply, letting the vampire come closer. “Q...no” Zatanna coughs out, reaching out to warn the man to stay away from the woman’s grasp. “I’m glad I took this” he says, reaching into his coat and pulling out a crucifix. “It came in handy” he says, pushing forward against the now burning woman. She covers her face in the crook of her arm, smoke coming off of her body. When she shows her face again, she looks positively feral.

“I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR SOUL OUT!” she screams, trying to ignore the pain she was in and advance on the man. The diary is slowly crumbling to ash though, and she moans in pain, getting only a few inches before falling to the ground and beginning to turn to ash herself. “No, I can’t die…” she whimpers, the masked man standing over her continuing to use the crucifix. With one last cry she falls forward onto the ground, exploding into a cloud of dust and ash, her aged and wizened body gone and nothing but an empty robe, in itself quickly becoming moth eaten.

“Hmmm” Question says, replacing the crucifix in his jacket before looking over at the still prone Zatanna. He moves quickly over to her, getting onto his knees while his hands go to her shoulders. “Are you alright?” he asks, the woman looking up at him in a mixture of gratitude and pain. “Yeah…” she says, still feeling the pain on her neck. “She...really got me” she adds, her voice sounding raspy. Slowly his gloved hands move up to her neck, massaging against the skin and soothing the bruises which had already begun to appear. She moans in relief and pleasure, blushing as the man touches one of her erogenous zones.

She moves up onto her butt, sitting down as he soothes her. “Feeling better?” he asks. “Very…” she responds. “My voice is my defense, so glad I still have it” she says, regretting how his fingers move away. She’d still have bruises, but he had definitely made it better. “Where did you learn to do that?” she asks. “Top secret” he says simply, standing up and offering her a hand. 

She frowns, not liking that at all. ‘Wonder what else he can do to me that’s top secret’ she asks mentally. ‘Hope I get clearance soon’.

She reaches up and takes his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. “Well, I guess we lost the book” he says, looking towards the charred remains. “I knew she’d wake up if we touched up. I’d just hoped that she wouldn’t be so strong” he says, turning away. 

“Wait, you knew she’d wake up?” Zatanna asks with a smile. “I do my homework. Before she died she cast a curse upon her diary, wanting to ensure that anyone who tried to get into her most private thoughts paid the price” he says.

“That being said, I really hate vampires, and the paranormal often leaves me feeling insufficient” he adds.

“Then why did you help me?” Zatanna asks curiously, moving up behind the man and placing her hands on his shoulder. The Question stiffens, looking away pointedly.

“When a gorgeous woman asks for help, a man will usually go along with it” he says evasively. 

She smiles, continuing her gentle kneading and massaging of his shoulders through the coat he wore. He was a solid head taller than her, a fact she instantly appreciated. “Gorgeous huh?” she asks, having been called many things, including gorgeous over the years.

‘Sounds better from him’ a voice in her mind says. She grimaces and tries to suppress it, not liking how the “dirty Zee”, as she had come to name this voice, was constantly piping up around her. 

“Yes” he says simply. 

There was something honest and pure in the way he said it that imbued his words with more power than the reserved platitudes from Bruce and the ultimately meaningless ones from John Constantine.    
  
She slowly turns him around, gently forcing his shoulders though he goes along with her actions willingly. “I’m sorry about the spell book” he says, trying to get out of the awkward situation by mentioning the point of their mission here. “Don’t worry handsome” she teases, reaching up to play with his tie, idly stroking her hand up and down it. “I wanted to destroy it anyway” she says. “Too much dark magic in there for my taste”.

His hands slowly come up to her thigh, landing in the are where her unitard and fishnets met. She wasn’t sure if he did that on purpose or just through instinct, but regardless she loved it. “So, no use in studying it then?”

“No” she says, moving up just a little closer onto her tippy toes, their mouths, his covered by the mask, an inch apart. “I’m more of a lights and fun times kind of witch” she teases, remembering her archetype from Dr. Fate’s. 

“I’m sure you’re great at parties” he says, causing her to smile and chuckle. “One, yes, I am. My father was a magician and a Las Vegas showman. I inherited that. Two, your sweet talk is great, but let me take the action then” she teases, pulling him the remaining distance to one another by the tie, pressing her lips against his mask. She was surprised to feel his lips, and decided that the mask must’ve been very thin indeed. 

‘Hmm’ she thinks to herself, teasing her tongue against the mask and tracing the outline of his lips. She feels his grip on her get tighter, and she moans in pleasure. ‘Ohhh why does this feel so awesome?’

**_The Tower of Fate_ **

Kent Nelson was a very happy and satisfied man. At least right now. There were always threats to this dimension, always things that only he could see and truly take action to prevent. But for now? With his wife’s head on his chest? He felt that he could relax, if only for a little while.

The naked woman idly brushed her hand up and down his body, tracing his pectoral with her finger. “Not bad for an old man” she teases, her hair a mess. “Ohh? Well at least you still have a use for me then”.

She chuckles to herself, leaning up to kiss Kent on the lips. “Yes, I don’t think it’s quite time to put you out to pasture Mr. Nelson” she says. “Well, very good then Mrs. Nelson”.

SHe lowers herself back into her original position, her thoughts turning to serious matters as well. “This dimension is one of the primes” she says. “Yes, it is. What about it?”

“Then that means that threats outside of the dimension cannot prevail” she says, explaining what he already knew. “They will wither and die, like...like that movie with the martians! H.G wells wrote it….War of the Worlds” she says excitedly, remembering the film she’d watched with her husband the previous week. “Yes. Unable to be stopped by the combined might of the world’s militaries, but unable to defeat the common cold” he says with a chuckle, finding it humorous. 

“Yes, but my point is, this demon would die out just as quickly with our normal intervention” she accuses. “That “prophecy” you showed Zatanna, was not prophecy, merely one of accepted outcomes laid out by the Lords” she says, moving onto her elbows and over the man, staring him in the eye as she lays on his chest.

“Why?” she asks simply.

Kent smiles and shrugs, knowing his wife would have found him out eventually.

“She was lonely” he explains, considering the sorceress to be something like a daughter to him. He’d watched her grow into her unitard so to speak, saving the world time after time. He’d tutored her when she’d first joined the League, and he was happy to continue assisting her.

“Uhh hmm” she says, urging him to go on.

“So, I cast a spell. The Verus Amor” he explains. “It reveals the threads that link us to others in our lives” he explains. “She had threads leading to Bruce Wayne and John Constantine, the others being long dead. Past loves or crushes long forgotten” he explains.

She waves him off though, not needing such a breakdown. “And you saw a phantom thread” she explains. “Uhh hmm. But this phantom thread was not opaque and hidden like others. No. It was a deep and dark red, translucent but still much darker” he explains. “That means one thing and one thing only”.

“Soulmates” she says, a little shocked. “We haven’t seen that since…”

“Since I first met you Inza” he says, cupping her cheek, idly stroking the skin with his thumb. “You’re a smooth talker Kent” she says. “I’m also a man who wants to focus on his own love life rather than someone else’s” he teases, turning the both of them in the bed so that she now laid under his chest.    
  
He begins to suckle and kiss at the woman’s pule point, making her moan in pleasure. “Ohh, one more thing” she asks, drawing a simple grunt of acknowledgement from her husband. “That lust spell you cast over her, it wont make her act too quickly will it?” she asks, not wanting the woman to regret. “No, she’ll give in only if and when she wants, but it does make her see things in a more personally honest way” he says. “People often stuff away their true thoughts, but I gave her deepest desires a voice in her mind. One she can’t simply brush away like we can” he explains, getting ready to go into the schematics for such a spell.

She silences him by moving in towards his lips, kissing him passionately. “Focus on our desires now lover” she teases, moving his hand to her round and pert breast. “As you wish” he says, a wide smile on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Living Quarters of the Question, Justice League Watchtower_ **

Zee was bored, though it wasn’t her usual boredom. The boredom where you want to get up and do something. It was a comfortable boredom where she didn’t feel like she had to entertain, nor be entertained by the man who was seated at his computer, typing away.

She rolls onto her back, having been laying on the bed while watching her….well, she really didn’t know what they were yet. After that first kiss they’d become closer, but there hadn’t been too many repeats of it, even though Zatanna wanted to. She leans her head over the bed, looking at the world upside down.   
  
“You’re going to hurt yourself doing that” comes the Question’s voice, not even stopping to look over his shoulder as he continues to type. “Pfft” she says, moving up onto her chest and crossing her arms on the blanket, looking at his back. “Well, maybe you need to come over here and make sure I don’t do that then” she teases, sticking her tongue out at him.

He doesn’t see, or at least she doesn’t think he does as he goes right back to typing. She frowns, wanting to talk with him about something important. “Hey, I...well, I wanted to talk” she says, though she’d picked an inopportune moment to suggest a heart to heart. He had just hit what she termed, “the zone”, a time in which he was practically dead to the outside world, he’d only focus on the computer screen and whatever theory he now found himself engrossed in. 

She raises her hand and smiles, whispering, “Nrut fo sih retupmoc”. The screen goes blank and from his shoulder movement she can see he’s confused. “Ahh hem” she says, turning his attention back to the bed where she now sat, her legs over the side and crossed in what she hoped was an alluring position. She smirks and pats the bed beside her, gesturing for the man to join her.

He seems to be nervous, though that was usual between them. He stands and walks over, putting himself down on the bed an inch or so from her. ‘Ohh that won’t do’ she thinks, loving how she could keep him off kilter. ‘This whole seduction thing is fun!’ she thinks, scooting closer and placing her hand on his back. She slowly works at pulling his jacket off, an action the man slowly goes along with until he’s in his shirt, vest and tie. “Soooo...I want to talk” she says, reaching up to rub his cheek.

“What about?” Question asks.

“Us”.

The teasing tone of her voice mixed with the breathy impact against his mask convinces him to make a move, something that was always a problem between the two of them. ‘He has to loosen up around me’.

His hand reaches out and takes hers, his gloved fingers interlaced between her own. “I still want to know who you really are” she says. “I like you Q...I really do”. Zatanna had been shocked at how easily it had been to start falling for the man. His strangeness and the quirks he had were initially annoying to the outgoing woman, who loathed technology. Eventually, he had introduced the woman to the magic of the internet and the joy she got from it was something she never expected.

Still, it was more fun to pull him into the real world. Their relationship was give and take, but she wanted it to be more openly so. 

“I like you too Zee...alot” he says, pulling her out of her thoughts. Zatanna smiles at him, scooting in closer. “But do you trust me?”

The question throws the man off guard, though it was hard for her to tell exactly. There were a few things that gave it away, things she’d picked up on from studying him. After moments of silence, she gets an answer. “Yes”.

She knows it’s the truth. Such a wait from any other man would be interpreted by any other woman as evidence of a lie, but the sorceress knew better. He was telling the truth. 

“Good. Because I trust you, but I still wanna see the man I’m falling for’s face” she admits. Question sighs and nods slowly, having had to have known that it would eventually come to this. “What are you afraid of?” she asks.

“I don’t really like whose under the mask”

“I do” she says, cutting him off. “I do, and I haven’t even seen him yet. Isn’t that enough reason to show me?”

He doesn’t say anything more, and instead begins to reach over towards the end table, his fingers wrapping around an aerosol can. “I apply this and then remove the mask” he explains, stopping as she takes his wrist. He looks back toward her, apparently curious. “Can I do it?”

“Do what?”

“Take the mask off for you” she explains, her hand moving to the can in anticipation of his agreement. He nods and lets her take the can from him, which she instantly brings up to his face. “Soo...I just...spray it?” she asks.

“Uhhmm”

“But won’t that hurt you? It’s not exactly smart to go spraying aerosol cans in people’s faces” she says, resisting the urge to use magic to remove it. “It’s perfectly safe” he says. “I’ve studied the effects of this particular spray, and made modifications myself. The mask is much more resilient than it looks as well”.

“Alright, you’re the boss Q” she says. ‘Ohh boss! I like that’ the lustful side of her pipes up, a voice she pushes away. ‘Do you think he’ll spank you if you’re bad?’ 

She focuses on the can, pushing her thoughts away as she raises it and sprays it against his mask, watching as it becomes semi translucent. ‘His hair changed color!’ she thinks, admiring the dark red that replaced the disguised black. “Now I just...peel it off or something?”

“I can do it…” he begins, reaching up to slip his fingers under the sides. Zee once again stops him, swatting his hands away. “No, I want to” she teases brattily, hiding her nervousness. “Yes ma’am”.

She inserts her fingers under the mask and pulls it away, watching as the filmy substance is removed, the features that dominate his face. She first sees his piercing brown eyes, and is forced to stop for a minute, getting lost in just looking into them. She pulls herself out of it and removes the rest, placing the mask on the bed and turning to admire the man.

Her eyes rove over the strong jawline, and his nose, which was a little crooked from a probable breaking in the past. ‘Ohh wow…’ her mind thinks. “Sorry, nothing special under there” he says almost sheepishly. Zee loved being able to discern some of his emotions from his expression, and she loved looking into his eyes. Slowly, she brings her hand up to his cheek, cupping it. “That’s not what I see” she says before leaning in to kiss his lips. 

The Question is shocked by her actions, but he is quick on his feet.   
  
He pulls her in, deepening their first non-obstructed kiss, his own hands moving to her lower back and waist. Almost unwillingly, the two separate from each other, and Zee lays her head on his chest. “Alright, so, you’re a handsome guy with a cute face. I was worried you didn’t actually have one” she teases.

“I do” Vic says, stating the obvious.

Zee just smiles, continuing to rub his cheek. “Duh. But do you have a name, or can I name you?”

“Charles Victor Szasz but just call me Vic. I don’t go by my birth name” he says, holding himself back from any further explanation. That was fine with the woman in his arms, who merely scooted over until she was practically in his lap. “Vic. I’m Zatanna Zatara. I’m your girlfriend. It’s nice to meet you” she teases, leaning in once more and planting a much more passionate kiss on him. His arm instantly goes about her waist, pulling her into him while his other moves up to her own cheek.

‘Ohh wow’.

She practically growls into his mouth while pushing him back onto the bed, straddling his waist. ‘Easy, easy, we don’t want the baby making done too early’. She reluctantly pulls off of his face, though she remains close to him, their breaths mingling with one another as they laid their. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met” he says suddenly. Zee just looks down at him with a quirked eyebrow and a smile. “Ohh?”

The man nods, still seemingly nervous around her but trying to hide it. “Yes”.

“Flatterer, I bet you say that to all the women here” she teases aloud while her mind whispered that he better not have. He shakes his head at the rhetorical question. “No, just you”. She smiles widely and nuzzles his nose, content to just lay there. “And how would you know that? Should I be concerned that you’re checking out all our colleagues Vic?”

He rolls his eyes and smiles lightly. “Please. I ‘check out’ everyone” he says before realizing how that sounds. Zee just quirks an eyebrow. “Not like that!” he defends himself, moving up on the bed so that his back was on the headboard, and Zee was still cuddled into his chest. “Ohh I know you go through people’s trash cutie. I’ve seen you do it”.

“It’s a vital part of making sure that the League hasn’t been compromised by an imposter” he says.

“Ohh, so you even have a plan for if the Invasion of the Body Snatchers happens huh?” she teases back, kissing his cheek. “......Yes” he responds tepidly. Zee only laughs aloud. “Great. My guy goes through people’s trash to make sure they aren’t pod people. Hey, how do you know I’m not a pod person?”

The Question was meant to be a jab, just to stoke his paranoia a bit, but the man was seemingly getting used to her already. He just smiles down at her, a reserved little smile that made the sorceress blush. “Hmm, well I’m not exactly sure. Maybe I should run some tests”. He leans in, his breath tickling up and down her skin, making goosebumps appear wherever it went. Before she knew it, he had her flipped around on the bed and pinned by her wrists while he straddled her, his weight supported on either side by his legs.

“So...what did you do with my Zee?”

The words were spoken with a joking lilt, but still it made her heart swoon. ‘My Zee!’ she thinks excitedly, loving the way he looked down at her. “We took her to the mothership” she jokes, leaning up to kiss him, though he teases her by leaning back out of her reach. She settles for just licking her lips instead. “Ohh no, what am I going to do without my sexy sorceress?”

‘Mmmm sexy sorceress! He knows just how to push our buttons!’

At this point in time, she didn’t want to stop dirty Zee from talking. So instead, she plays along. “Ohh don’t worry. We know how much you need her. So they sent me”.

“Hmm, well, you sure do look like her...talk like her and smell like her. I wonder….” he begins before dropping the charade entirely and leaning down, pressing his lips against hers. He lets go of her wrists, allowing her to wrap her arms instantly about his midsection, her deft fingers feeling and unbuttoning as fast as she could, not sure of what they really wanted aside from her end goal. 

He moves into her neck, gently licking and suckling at her pulse point. “Ohh Vic! That feels soooo good!” she moans, the two bodies moving to the side and exploring each other more opening. Vic moves his hand to her thigh, squeezing and caressing it through her leggings before moving upwards to caress her unitard covered bum. She bites her lips and moans, feeling as if she was under assault from eighty different directions.

As soon as she was going to move her hands even lower, the tower’s klaxons blare, signalling an emergency. “Ohh son of a…” she says, sitting up and glaring at the doorway. Vic was already on his feet, sliding out from under her to pick up his coat. 

“That’s a green alarm” he says. “Yeah, yeah, it’s really important” Zee retorts with a huff, trying to fix her disheveled clothing to the best of her ability. She puts her hand up and summons her top hat, watching as it levitates through the air and into her hand. She places it on her head, turning just in time to see Vic replace his mask on his face. 

“We better get to the launch bay” he says.

“I’m coming” she says, standing up and moving to his side, the two of them exiting the room at the same time and barrelling into the hall.

At that point Black Canary and Green Arrow were already moving as well, and the group almost collided with one another. “Hey, watch it faceless!” the Emerald Archer fumes, having almost broken his bow on the conspiracy theorist’s side. Zatanna glares at the man, ready to say something until Black Canary intervenes. “Sorry you two...hey...wait a minute...what were you both doing in there?” she asks, pausing in their panic and alertness to question one of her friends. 

Zatanna blushes and instead looks down the hall, trying to focus on the flashing green lights. “We have to get to the launch bay” she repeats, taking Q’s hand on instinct and rushing them down the hall. Dinah and Ollie are right on their tails, though Green Arrow was in a much more sour spirit than the smirking Black Canary. 

“Ohh don’t think you’re getting out of this Galinda the good witch” she teases. “Tell me, what were you doing in Q’s room?”

“Nothing Dinah..nothing” she shouts back, trying to just focus on the mission. Her face was burning though, a bright blush giving away the fact that before they’d been interrupted the exact opposite of “nothing” was being done.

“Aww come on. It’s cute. Besides, holding hands? What are we in elementary school?” 

  
Ollie snickers and openly laughs, enjoying the discomfort that his girlfriend was putting his political/league nemesis through. Zee looks join, seeing that their hands were still enjoined before she made to let go. Q’s grip was tight though, and didn’t yield at her initial tug. She stops to look at him, the other two being forced to a halt as well. She tries to read what he’s trying to tell her, but as usual his mask prevents all communication.

Still..somehow...she could understand.   
  
With a smile she turns to the two blondes and shrugs. “We were doing some smooching. Couples tend to do that” she says, laughing to herself before gesturing back towards the bay. “Now..we’re all adults about this huh? So let’s just drop it and get to the javelins”.

She’s off once again, Q following quickly behind her while she occasionally turns her head to snicker and smile. “Pfft, that’s the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. What self respecting woman would wanna do the dirty with old paranoid and faceless?”

Dinah doesn’t respond, instead focusing on how cutely the two had interacted. There wasn’t any shying away from the facts, not when it came to those two. 

“Right? Pretty bird? Hello?” he asks, waving his hand in front of her face.

“Huh, what? Ohh yeah, handholding and kissing. Romance? Openly showing you care about your girl? All very gross. Come on Ollie, let’s just get to the javelins” she says, ending her sarcastic rant with a sigh. She takes off, leaving Ollie momentarily distracted by the movement of her shapely rear end, barely hidden by her unitard.

“Huh, ohh yeah, better get moving” he says to himself, feeling like he was missing something. 

‘Ehh, probably not important’.

**_The Skies Above Markovia_ **

She wanted to throw up, but she also knew that doing so would earn her the ire of everyone else crammed into the tight confines of the transport. She hated taking the javelins, especially into “combat zones” as they were called.

“Are you okay?”

She turns to see Q, strapped into a chair beside her. She tries to nod, but just at that moment a shell explodes next to the javelin, bumping it to the side and causing her to almost lose her lunch. She manages to calm down and relax, just settling in when she feels a hand on her back, gently rubbing. 

“Here, take this”

She looks at his hand and sees the white little pill shaking in his glove. He also has a small bottle of water, undoubtedly checked for fluoride and secreted somewhere in his coat. She smiles and takes both items, throwing the pill and swallowing some of the water. She closes her eyes and looks down, the gentle motion of the man’s hand on her helping even more than the pill.

“Anti nausea?” she asks, trying to make small talk with her now open boyfriend, a fact that each other member of the league present found amusing. Dinah was just smiling at the two, while Ollie glowered. The rest regarded them with interest but overall apathy.

“Uhhmm. My own invention” 

“And what made you invent an anti nausea pill?” she asks jokingly. 

“I was curious about the effects of modern birth control on the female mind. I had to double check them with the compounds found in past medicines, and while tinkering with thalidomide, I found out that it was designed to cause birth defects in pregnant women” he explains. 

“Thalidomide...wait, I know about that! It caused a big problem with limb development back in the sixties. Wait...is it safe for me to take this?” she asks, her mind worriedly going to Carina. 

“Perfectly. Like I said, I worked on it. I cross referenced it with modern birth control methods and found that nine out of ten of them contained roughly seventy eight percent of the same compounds. I believe they are trying to modify people’s belief systems by orientating their brain lengths along a certain pattern. The physical effects were undesirable, but the mental effects…” he says, going silent. 

Zee was waiting with baited breath, finding herself shocked that she was so interested. “The mental effects what?” she asks.

“Don’t you find it suspicious that the generation after birth control became so rebellious? Prone to a desire for instant gratification? Sex, drugs and rock and roll? This was all priming for consumerism. If the worldwide elites couldn’t control the people through government any longer, they’d do it through consumption. Dangle the newest and shiniest items in front of them while pulling them in. Before you know it, you’re working a twelve hour shift to afford the newest phone and not even batting an eye, and the best part? You don’t even know it’s happening. You still think you’re free because you’re “choosing” to work for that item, and never ever thinking of revolt” he says, his voice taking a dark turn. “And even if you do? The corporations will just coopt your protest so you support them even more”.

“That...that can’t be true…” Zee says, though she was unsure herself. 

Q just turns his head, appraising her silently. 

She caves, biting her lip and looking away. ‘That can’t be true can it?’

“But, during my research I discovered a very effective anti nausea pill. Is it helping?”

She looks inward, trying to feel if the nausea was still there. After a few seconds she concludes that the pill had to have helped after all. She smiles and nods at Vic, leaning into his side and cuddling close. “It does. Really well. Hmm...should I start listening to you more?” she teases.

“I would say I’m right more often than not”.

She nuzzles against his arm and laughs. “Well, we better be extra careful then if I’m going to go home and throw out my birth control” she teases, sticking out her tongue at him before blushing and looking away. If she hadn’t been holding onto him she wouldn’t have known he was affected by her words, both not having been ready for the double entendre beneath those words.

Still, he holds onto her, moving his arm behind her back and pulling her close. ‘Great, way to be suave Zee. Jeez what’s wrong with you? I mean, granted, the world’s safety is dependent upon you and Q having a cute little bun..Carina? That was her name...what a beautiful name!’ her mind says, wandering. 

“I..guess we’ll be careful...when we get to that bridge”.

Zee just smiles up at him and pats his chest, wanting to move on from the awkwardness of the previous moments, taking an opportune time to straighten back up as Batman enters the Javelin’s transport bay through the cockpit door. 

“Vertigo is making another claim on the Markovian throne” he explains, not even flinching as the Javelin is almost hit once again. “He’s also amassed a large enough fortune to gather a small army to his cause. A good number of our rogues gallery is down there”.

“Hey bats, isn’t this a job for the Markovian army? Or maybe even some other military already in Europe?” Plastic Man asks, stretching out his neck to move into speaking distance with the caped crusader. 

Batman just glares at the elastic superhero and shakes his head. “The Markovians barely have an army to take on a national threat, let along a metahuman supported coup. The Justice League was called in specifically because of this. Now, we’re landing in two minutes. Everyone get ready for a fight as soon as that ramp drops” he says. “Any questions?”

“Yeah one…” Green Arrow begins before being cut off by Batman. “Good”. Without another word he turns, his cape splaying out behind him while moving back into the cockpit. Ollie lowers his hand and crosses his arms, glowering like a petulant child. “It was a serious question”.

“Sure it was” Vigilante snickers beside him, getting Vixen to join in on the laughter though she politely hides it behind her hand.   
  
Zatanna was nervous, just as she was before any large scale operation like this. “I’m right next to you” Question says, nodding his head firmly and undoing his safety belt, wanting to be as ready as possible for when it came time to go on the assault. Zee feels emboldened and strengthened by his presence. “Me too Q”.

She reaches down and unbuckles her own belt, feeling safe now that the both of them affirmed that they had each other’s back. The other leaguers begin to follow suit, all of them getting their game faces on as the javelin pivots backwards and lowers to land. The ratatata of machine gun fire could be heard all along the hull, hinting that the group wouldn’t only be dealing with metahumans today. 

The craft’s landing mechanism deploys, dropping the legs into the dirt and steadying it. “MOVE NOW!” Batman shouts, rushing out of the cockpit and jumping into battle, batarangs already in his hand as he tosses them, incapacitating two of the Vertigo loyalists instantly. He’s a blur, and before long he’s no longer visible in the utter chaos that was the battlefield outside of the Markovian royal keep.

Plastic man is next out, stretching his legs to fantastic proportions to walk as if he was on stilts across the battlefield, his eyes focused on Giganta, who was busy trying to batter down the walls of one of the outlying Markovian battlements. “Hey gorgeous, mind if I butt in?” he calls out teasingly, wrapping about her legs and causing her to stumble backward.

Vigilante and Vixen head off quickly as well, moving towards a currently embattled Deadshot who was sending a steady stream of bullets towards royalist infantry. Zee steps off and tries to get a handle on the battle going on around her. ‘Ohh god, we’re not ready for this!’ she thinks, definitely not having been prepared for this level of fighting. ‘This isn’t fighting demons in the nether realm, and this isn’t a haunting to fix! What the hell was I thinking? Ohh god…’.

A hand comes to her shoulder and she turns to see Question standing behind her. “It looks like the others have the outlying areas secured. We should head towards the main entrance and see if we can offer the defenders any assistance”.

“Right right” she says, collecting her breath, trying to remind herself that there were people who needed her help. “I’m right next to you” he says, moving off towards the castle at a quick pace. Zatanna smiles and decides to show off a bit, wanting to focus on wowing her boyfriend with her abilities. 

She conjures up two golden spheres with her hands and waves her hands over the ground. “Nommus a erehps” she says, using her magic to bring forth a disk from the ground. She steps onto it and forces it to levitate. It rockets through the air, stopping beside Question who was only a few feet before her. She offers a hand down and smiles. “Need a lift?”

He takes one look at the sphere and seems to step back before focusing on Zatanna and nodding, taking her hand and moving onto the magically conjured transport. “If you need to hang on to anything, my waist is right here” she teases, forcing the sphere to head towards the castle quickly.

He’s startled by the unexpected movement, and he reaches out with one hand, managing to secure himself much more steadily by holding onto Zee. She smiles, enjoying that for once she had the upper hand over her boyfriend in being calm. 

“Ohh god” she says, getting a birdseye view of the battlefield. 

Superheroes were fighting villains left and right. At the moment they could see Wonder Woman battling it out with Cheetah, the Amazon and former scientist trading blows that would kill any normal person. Superman was busy fighting Gorilla Grodd, while Batman was engaged with Deathstroke, the latter’s blade wedged in the forked blades on the Gotham based vigilante’s wrist gauntlets.

“They can handle this. We need to ensure that the Queen is safe”

“Right, right. But where’s Vertigo?” she asks.

“Probably near the keep. That’s why we need to move” 

She nods, and dips the sphere lower, moving over the castle walls. “Above! More of them!” a soldier shouts in Markovian.

Gunfire erupts from the defenders of the castle, and both duck to avoid it. “Mlac nwod” she shouts out, casting a spell that lowers the aggressive nature of the soldiers, if only for a minute. She brings the sphere down and lands before who appeared to be their lieutenant. 

He was an older man, whose hair sported a distinguished level of grey. He smiles and checks out Zatanna, his eyes roving over her body desirously. “Ohh, so beautiful. An angel….hmm...come here angel!” he says, making to move forward and touch the sorceress. He’s only stopped by Question’s hand on his shoulder. 

“I think your spell worked a little too well” he says, though she could detect...something in the tone of his voice. The lieutenant seems to not notice the man, and merely keeps moving forward, trying to bring the sorceress too him. “Ohh? Is something wrong Q?” she teases coquettishly. 

“Yes. Undo the spell please”.

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong” she teases.

“Zee..we don’t have time for this…”.

“Then you better tell me quickly lover…”

With a sigh he looks down then back up. “I’m not going to let another man, even one under a spell, touch you and make doe eyes at you. Now please Zee, release it so these men can get back to fighting and defending the castle”.

“Ohh ohh right” she says, blushing at how inopportune her teasing of her boyfriend had been due to the battle raging about them. She raises her hand and says “Eodun stahw neeb enod” causing the lights to cascade around the soldiers and free them from their stupor. The light goes out of the lieutenant’s eyes and he blinks, closing them and rubbing his head. “All you needed to do was tell me you were jealous Q” she says under her breath, smiling at the man. 

  
He just looks away and lets his hand drop from the man’s shoulders. “What happened?” he aks in Markovian. “Ohh great, here, let me cast a…”

She’s cut off as Vic turns the man and begins to speak in his language, shocking Zatanna once again. “You and your men were incapacitated for a moment. My name is Question, and this is Zatanna Zatara. We’re with the Justice League. Where is Queen Elsabeth?” he asks in quick neutral tones that momentarily shock the man. 

He shakes out of his confusion quickly enough however, and he points over the one of the castle towers. “Her royal guard is keeping her in the lower portion of the Golden Portico. It’s the safest area in the whole castle. Vertigo will never…”

Just then, a huge explosion rockets through the courtyard, sending masonry crashing down and soldiers falling to their deaths. The tower the lieutenant points to shakes and eventually crumbles, leaving the upper half exposed. “Ohh no!” the lieutenant screams, watching as a trail of ice forms, Captain Cold using his modified pistols to create a pathway up into the wreckage. The Rogues advance up it, following an eager Count Vertigo, who was most likely already tasting victory.

“Men! The Queen is under assault! We need to move!” the older man shouts, not even noticing the two superheroes as he hurries his soldiers down the stone steps into the courtyard, the easy path to the tower having been destroyed by the explosion.

“They’ll never make it in time, and even if they did Vertigo and the Rogues will rip them apart” Zee says aloud. “I know, that’s why we have to get there first”.

She nods, the adrenaline rushing through her body while she summons up another sphere, intending to use it to allow them a tactical advantage. “Let’s move then!”

**_The Queen’s Safehouse_ **

The explosion had startled the queen, who was still wearing her evening clothes as she had been awoken very early in the morning, following the commencement of the attack. Her daughter cried out in fear, the little girl huddling into her mother. “Shh..shhh.. It’s okay little one. It’s okay” she whispers, hearing the sudden sound of combat in the halls outside of the supposedly “impenetrable” bunker.

Two soldiers rush up to the door, kneeling and loading their rifles, ready to kill and die to protect their queen. 

However, the sounds of dying soldiers in the hallway beyond the steel blast door don’t help settle anyone’s minds, and all were now sure that they would die painfully.   
  
Silence descends as one last pained cry echoes out from the opposite side of the doorway. The soldiers look at each other nervously, nervous as the air in the room chills to the point that everyone can see their breath. The door begins to become encased in ice until finally it is frozen solid through. A second passes before it shatters, sending shards of glass spraying out backwards. The Queen throws her body over the little girl, trying to shelter her from the shards that rip through the two soldiers, killing them instantly. 

The little blonde tries to struggle out of her mother’s grasp, fearful of what was happening around her and not helped at all by the unresponsiveness of her mother. 

“Mommy!” she screams out, seeing the cuts that now dot along her unconscious mother’s face.

“Ahh, so sweet of them to put the both of you right where I need you the most” a sinister voice echoes out from the huge gap in the defensive perimeter. Vertigo steps into the ruins of the room, followed by Captain Cold and Mirror Master who flank him on either side.

The princess screams out in horror, knowing exactly who had come for her. She pushes at her mother’s limp body, desperate for the queen to awaken and yet, she feels nothing. “Mother! Please! Wake up!” she shouts out. “Don’t waste your time child. She’s already dead. Look at her. Limp and already cold. Nice job on that by the way Snart” he says, turning and speaking in English to his accomplice who looks upon the sobbing little girl and feels anything but good about the job he’d done. “You didn’t say we’d be killing the queen right in front of her daughter Vertigo” he says.

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t be either. You still took the money. Relax. If it’s so important to you, I’ll double your wage. Consider it...emotional turmoil pay” he says, mocking the man loudly. 

Captain Cold looks back at the sobbing little girl who is now desperately pulling on her mother’s arm. “Mommy please! Wake up!”

He couldn’t understand her, but that kind of suffering? That kind of anguish? It was universal. One look at Mirror Master confirms that the other man felt the same way, and both nod at each other before looking back at Vertigo. “No deal asshole” he says, raising his pistol.

“Such a shame. I could’ve had you knighted”.

“Nobody is going to be knighted anytime soon Vertigo” comes a voice from the hallway, the Question and Zatanna walking in, having overheard the mutiny that was now taking place. “And especially not any coronation you murdering bastard!”   
  
Zatanna’s rage was palpable and she could barely keep herself from launching into an attack on the man herself at that moment. “Ahh the Justice League’s witch has arrived. Still as green as you were when you started no?” Vertigo laughs cruelly. “And this? I don’t know you. Which means, you are not important” he states, dismissive of the masked conspiracy theorist. “I’m insulted that off all the so called “heroes” who arrived here, only two nobodies could get to me. I wanted the battle that would secure my crown to be more legendary. Instead I get two b listers and two turncoats”.

He brings his hand to his head and shakes it. “Ahh, very well, let’s be done with this shall we?” he asks before activating his ear piece and sending out waves of nausea inducing waves. The four heroes and villains are instantly immobilized, the world shaking around them as they fall to the floor, desperate to try and get a bead on the villain. Question falls to his knees, gasping for breath while Zatanna tumbles backwards onto her rear end, fighting to keep her balance and failing. Snart tried to fire his pistol, but with how dizzy he is it merely impacts against the ceiling, causing an icicle to form. It falls due to the shaking of the castle walls, and impales itself in Mirror Master’s foot, sending the man down to the ground as he yelps in pain, too disorientated to even remove it.

“Dammit Cold! Don’t fire….unless….unless” he says before throwing up, unable to continue speaking.

“Ahh, so weak. Only the first wave of my powers and yet you are incapable of even standing. The second..” he says, reaching up to his ear to turn the dial of his vertigo inducing ear piece, “will cause pain” he says.

Within seconds the four begin to scream as their mind comes under direct assault, each grasping their heads and trying to contain the red hot tendrils of fire that shoot through their skulls. Blood slowly begins to trickle out of their ears and nose. 

“The third?” he stops, a sinister smile gracing his features. “Well, let’s just say that the third makes things extremely...unpleasant for you” he says, getting ready to increase the voltage a third and final time.

Vertigo wasn’t looking behind him, and didn’t notice that the princess had looked up and with tear streaked eyes, glared at the man who had killed her mother. “You...MURDERER!” the little girl shouts, standing in her sleeping robes and shaking, her fists balled up and clenched in rage. “You killed her!”

It starts slowly at first, but eventually Vertigo stops his assault on the now incapacitated heroes to turn and look at the princess. His eyes widen at seeing her encased in a low level yellow light which grows in intensity. She’s looking down, her eyes closed as fresh tears force their way through the crack of her eyelids. “You killed her!” she repeats, screaming as her hands open and she leans out, almost on instinct. The walls begin to shake, and bricks fall from above as dirt comes crashing up from the floor below them, forming tendrils that snake around the Count’s legs.

He is taken off of his feet, and hoisted into the air, the dirt travelling upwards to encase his entire lower body. “AHHH” he screams out in pain as the diminutive girl squeezes her hands shut, her face the very picture of rage.   
  
Sharp rocks begin to hurtle through the air, circulating around the suspended man as if he was in the center of a vortex. Slowly they turn and begin to rocket into him, slicing his flesh like the ice shards that had taken her mother’s life. He continues to scream out in pain, writhing as he tries to reach his ear piece and incapacitate the girl. 

At that moment, a rock passes right over him, slicing his ear off and taking the device with it. He screams out in agony as the device was the only thing keeping the vertigo from which he got his namesake from affecting him. The world spins around him, and he can’t even keep his head straight. The girl drops him to the ground, watching him writhe. “No! No! No!” he shouts out. “Please!”

The princess is unmoved by his pleas and as the rocks drop down, she brings forth another, this one much longer, resembling a spear which comes to a sharp point. She lets out a scream of rage, ready to end the man’s life.

Seconds before, Question had begun to come too, the sensory blockers of his mask allowing him to recover from Vertigo’s attack much quicker. He moves to his knees, rushing over to Zatanna and seeing her unconscious, the pain having knocked her out. He takes his glove off, placing his fingers on her neck and checking for a pulse, desperately fearful that he had lost her.

“Zee” he whispers, content to find that she was still alive. He turns and sees the princess, ready to exact her revenge on the man who had taken her world from her. “No!” he calls out in Markovian, stopping the little girl in her tracks. She still keeps the spear like stone suspended however. She turns her maddened gaze on the faceless man and snarls. “Why? He deserves it! He killed my mommy!” 

“He does. He really does. But you don’t”.

His words stop her and she is visibly confused. “What do you mean?”

“If you kill him, you won’t change a thing sweetheart” he says, moving closer on shaky legs. “I know what you’re feeling. That sense of helplessness and of being alone”.

“You don’t..” she begins, the tears coming back even stronger as she moves to her mother. 

“You’re right. I don’t he begins”, shocking the girl. “I never even had a mother. I have nothing to remember her by. She gave me up, abandoned me. But you? You still have a mother. A mother who is looking down on her little girl and seeing someone with the potential to change the world”.

It was at this moment that Zee was slowly waking up, groaning and moving her hand to her head, her eyes instantly settling on Vic, his hand’s outstretched to try and comfort the girl. 

“You can be avenge your mother. But not by killing him. Not by being like him. You can avenge her by letting this garbage see that he didn’t destroy you. The best revenge is a life well lived”.

“I...I…”

“What’s your name?”

“Umm…”

“Come on you can tell me. I’m a friend” he says, his monotone somehow putting the girl at ease. 

“Tara. Tara of house Markov” she says.

“Aww, what a pretty name. Now, what would you like that name to mean? People can see you as a killer, who stooped as low as the bad guys, or they could see a hero and a queen who was better than them”.

“I...I…”

“She’ll be so proud of you. I know I would be if you were my daughter”.

“I….I...I...just want my mommy” she says, sobbing louder than ever before and reverting into the scared little girl that she was at her core. The stone spear falls away harmlessly next to the now unconscious Vertigo. Tara falls to her knees, crying into her hands as Vic rushes forward. He places his hands on her shoulders, wanting to comfort her. 

Her little body is quickly thrown into his midsection and he is quick to react, hugging her close and rubbing the back of her hair. “Shh...shhh...it’s okay. Shh..we’re right here” he says. This does nothing for the little girl, who in her heart of hearts knew that everything wasn’t okay, and that it would be a long time before she could start to feel that way. But at that moment? The man’s arms were comforting and she needed someone to lean on.

Zee slowly gets up, glaring at the villains who had caused such a tragedy. “Dnib meht rethegot” she says, watching as blue tendrils form into ropes and wrap themselves around Mirror Master, Captain Cold and Vertigo.   
  
She looks at her boyfriend’s back, not sure of how to approach him or the little girl, and not even knowing if she could help in anyway. 

“We have reached the….” Batman’s voice begins, the hero shuffling into the room to find the situation already handled. “Woah, what the hell happened here?” Green Arrow asks, looking around as his eyes settle on the crying little girl being held by Q. For once he keeps his mouth shut, as all the heroes assembled stared at the carnage. 

“Batman to Watchtower. Watchtower do you read?”

“Batman this is J’onn. What’s going on?”

“We have casualties. Alert the Markovian army to move in and protect the castle”.

He goes on but neither Question nor Zatanna hear what the caped crusader had to say, each being focused only on the sobbing little girl. Tears slowly leak out of the sorceress’ eyes, not being able to understand why they hadn’t been able to save the Queen. 

Question is motionless, a protective and unmoving layer that allowed the princess to mourn, protected from the outside world. 

He was doing more for her than the “impenetrable” bunker could’ve ever done.

**_Justice League Watchtower, Medical Ward_ **

He was watching her through the window, tubes and wires hooked up to her to monitor her vitals. With the revelation that she was a metahuman, and with the fragile state of the Markovian state following what was now being called the Vertigo War, the Markovian senate had allowed the Justice League to take her, effectively making her a ward.

She was under their protection now, until she was of age to return home and take the throne. Until that time, the military would run the state as an effective military dictatorship. Despite reservations from the League, they had agreed. After all, they were legally within their rights to seize control in this situation, and the League promised to maintain a human rights watch over the region.

Question didn’t care for any of that, and instead continued to watch the little girl who had been put on a heavy anesthetic to ensure that her powers didn’t act up and harm herself and others. 

Still, he maintained a steady watch.

“Hey Q” a voice says from behind him.

He knows exactly who it is and he nods in greeting. “Zee”.

She moves besides him and takes his hand, squeezing it gently. “She’s going to be okay, in no small part thanks to you” she explains. “You saved more than just her life. You probably saved her future”.

“But I couldn’t save her mother”.

“None of us could baby” she says, reaching up to grasp his chin, turning his head so he was looking down at her through the mask. “I don’t want you beating yourself up because of what happened. I won’t let you either. Focus on the good. A little girl is alive, without blood on her hands. You’re a hero”.

“I...I don’t feel like one”.

“You are” she explains, reaching up to kiss him gently on the lips. 

“Batman sent me” she explains as she pulls away. “He wants me to tell you to go home. He needs you rested”.

“I’m not exactly in the big leagues. He can afford to have me off the ro…”

“No..we can’t” she says with a smile. “You’re Justice League too. And just because you can’t shoot lasers out of your eyes, or run at the speed of light, doesn’t make you any less so. You’re here for a reason. So stop moping okay? Without you I wouldn’t have been able to go onto that hellscape and do anything. YOU...:” she says, poking him in the chest. “Saved the day. So..listen to your girlfriend”.

A moment of silence goes by until eventually he nods. “Alright...I’ll go to the transporter and talk to Terrific. He’ll beam me home to Hub...what?”

He stops as he notices her nervous smile and blush. “Actually, I was thinking, my place is...well, technically speaking it’s nowhere, but it is also technically closer” she says. “Would...would you like to come home with me for the night?”

She asked because she wanted his comfort, and she wanted to comfort him. In fact, that’s all she wanted. Just to be close and keep him from being depressed. He’s quiet again, mulling it over in his mind but she can tell that he doesn’t want to be alone either.

“Okay”.

“Okay” she repeats with a wide smile, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “And don’t worry. As soon as she’s awake tomorrow we’ll come right here to check on her. I promise” she says, nuzzling her nose against his mask.

“Ot eht esuoH fo ytinretE” she says, a portal opening behind him that she slowly pushes him back through. 

**_House Of Mystery, Everywhere and Nowhere_ **

The duo step out into a large and spacious living room area, and warmth is the instant feeling that assaults him. A fire blazes in the fireplace in the middle of the room, flanked on either side by shelves of books and tomes of an obvious magical variety. 

Heads of all sorts of creatures, some that were of earthly origin, others more mythological, and yet more were completely unknown to him. The Question just looks around, completely shocked at how spacious and foreign the house was. 

“Magic” he says to himself. 

“Exactly” Zee whispers in his ear, smiling widely. “Welcome to the House of Myster! It’s well...kind of mine” she explains with a blush. “I...got it after an ex screwed up really bad, so the house didn’t like him anymore so it asked me to take over”.

“John Constantine I presume”.

“How...you know what? I won’t ask” she teases, smiling as the purple skinned woman the house used as a representative of itself, appeared besides Vic. He isn’t phased at all, and simply regards the simulacron who smiles at him. “Hello Victor Sage. My mistress welcomes you into the House of Mystery. Is there anything I can assist you with?”

“Yes please Housie. If you can start a shower for us, that would be great. We both need to clean”.

The woman nods. “Anything else?”

“No, I’m sure we can work everything else out. Thank you Housie”.   
  
With one more nod, the woman vanishes and Vic looks over at her. “Housie?”

“Well I didn’t wanna be rude and just call her slave, or some of the other trash that John hurled at her” she explains. “And she wouldn’t give me a name soooo….Housie. As in House of Mystery. I gotta say...I’m a little impressed by how well you’re taking this. Not many people would be as calm and collected as you are right about now”.

“I’m not most people” he says, putting his hands in his pockets, quietly afraid to touch anything. “And I intend to be around you for as long as possible, so I want to know all about your world”.

That last sentence made her smile. Bruce had been dismissive of her world and knowledge unless it directly helped him. He didn’t mean too, but it just happened. John? Well he already knew “everything”, or so he thought, and thus never actually wanted to confer with her on anything. But Vic? He was deferring to her here? It was something that instantly warmed her inner fire. 

She walks up to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders, smiling as she leans in to kiss him. She fishes into his jacket, retracting the aerosol can and spraying it, peeling his mask away to reveal his face to her. She kisses him again, cooing while his hands snake around to her waist, the tips of his fingers idly touching her bottom. 

“Let me show you to your room and a warm shower” she teases, retracting herself and taking his hand. Wordlessly she brings a lit candelabra to her hand, holding both him and it as she moves towards the stairs. “Just be careful around here. You’re a welcome guest and all, so Housie will help if you just call her, but there are a few...well...creatures that crawl around from time to time. Usually harmless. Usually. Also, the rooms change. Alot. Don’t expect to stay in the same room twice. So if you lose something, again call Housie or me”.

“I’ve already keyed you in so anytime you wanna come over for some smooching, just call out for me and you’ll be transported right here” she teases, remembering that by calling his name she could do the same. ‘Teehee, booty call on demand!’ the dirty Zee pipes up, causing Zatanna to blush as she turns the corner into a dark and foreboding hallway.

“Hmm...quaint” Vic says, causing her to chuckle as she looks back. “I know. It’s not exactly cozy yet, but the room probably will be! After all, Housie basically knows what you’re looking for already” she says, looking at the green door the purple skinned woman was standing outside of. “Here you are mistress and mistress’ beloved” she says, causing Zee to laugh nervously. “He’s my boyfriend Housie” she says, trying to explain to the woman that there was a difference. 

The spectral woman only turns her head inquisitively. “Is that not the same thing?” she asks before fading away, leaving the two of them to enter the room. She reaches forward, turning the knob on the door and entering, pulling the redheaded conspiracy theorist behind her.   
  
“Woah. It’s really nice” he says, enjoying the spacious room with yet another fireplace, in front of which was some sort of...alien bear skin rug? It had eight eyes and protruding teeth, resembling more a giant spider than a bear. The bed looked warm and inviting and before he could help it he moves over to the window, looking out into the swirling purple void that existed between dimensions.

“Wow”.

A bathroom was attached, and she could hear the shower already going. With a nervous smile she puts the candelabra down and slowly removes her top hat, placing it on a hook. She kicks off her boots before shrugging off her jacket and undoing her cumberbund, reaching down to begin unbuttoning her shirt. She is standing just in her bra and panties, watching her boyfriend’s back.

She murrs and reaches behind her, undoing the clasp of her bra and letting her large d cup breasts free. “Do you like the view?” she asks, slipping out of her panties and laying them on the bed, working on her fishnets as well.   
  
She is fully naked, and with a nervous smile she hums, obviously seeking his attention. Vic turns, moving out of his sightseeing stupor and becoming even more shocked. Zatanna stood, naked as the day she was born, before him, her hands on her hips. She moves slowly towards him, her hands working on pushing his jacket off. 

“A shower is waiting for us” she explains, nervous about his lack of verbal response while she works on undoing his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. “I...I had assumed we’d be in separate showers”.

His bare chest comes into view, and Zee smiles at the toned musculature. She leans in and kisses his pectoral, gently suckling at the skin while moving to his neck. His hands lash out on instinct, grasping her now bare waste before almost retracting. He’s stopped by Zee’s hands on his wrists, pulling him willingly forward until they rest on her pert ass cheeks. 

“You said when I first met you that showers were done alone” she teases, licking his lips while she reaches down and works on his belt and pants. Her hand brushes against his hard member and she blushes, letting out little trills of excitement. “Do you think you could possibly change your mind about that?”

His pants drop, and his member bobs free, instantly pressed against Zee’s womanhood. She reaches down and grasps it, stroking her hand up and down while her thumb traces the trails of veins that move up and down it. Her thumb comes to his foreskin, and she gently pushes it back and forth, teasing the swollen head with her thumb.   
  
Vic reacts animalistically, capturing her lips with his own and picking her up by her rear end. She is soon with her back against the wall, his lips now moving over her jawline and into her neck. He suckles her pulse point, dabbing at her rapidly warming skin with his tongue. Now that he had her supported, his free hand comes up to tease her breast, first cupping it in his hands before his thumb moves higher, working on her nipple. 

It springs to life almost instantly, allowing for him to move even lower and capture it in his mouth. She looks down at him, cooing affectionately and urging him on. “Yes baby, yes!” she moans, running her fingers through his hair while pressing her chest deeper into his mouth. He obliges, sucking as much tit flesh as he could, which still left quite a lot left unloved at the moment, before releasing her. 

  
Her skin was now shiny with his saliva, and he moved up and down her teat, a trail of kisses being left all over. “You’re...you’re...perfect” he whispers against her skin, his breath and words mixing to send a shiver up her back. “I...I...I lo...shower..we need to get to the shower Vic” she moans, wanting to get clean as well as make love to the man.   
  
“Your wish is my command” he says, keeping a firm grip on her and clumsily moving towards the door. “Nepo” she hisses in pleasure, feeling Vic’s penis hotdogged right between her quickly moistening petals. He had begun rubbing back and forth, teasing the both of them with all the promised pleasure. 

The door squeaks open, allowing them entrance before closing behind them.

The House of Mystery would see and sense their lovemaking. After all, it knew everything that happened within its walls. But the House was also, like its name would suggest, the mistress of discretion.


	3. Chapter 3

**_House of Mystery, The Next Morning_ **

He snored.

That’s one of the first things she noticed in the morning. In fact, it was THE first thing she noticed in the morning. It had woken her up, but not because it was loud. In fact, it was quiet. Just really an inhale and exhale of breath that occasionally came out louder and gruffer than normal.

She didn’t mind. It was comforting. Cute even.

She lays her head on his chest and nuzzles deeper against his skin, her hand splayed out over his pectoral. She can’t sleep, not with all the thoughts and feelings that were swirling around her head. ‘What the hell is happening?’

It had been a few weeks since she’d been practically forced by necessity into Vic’s life. She’d lost sense of time though. It hadn’t felt like a chore, at least not since that first moment she walked into his room. No. It felt...right. 

It felt so natural in fact, that it only confirmed in her mind the correctness of what Doctor Fate said. It felt like...well...fate.

  
She couldn’t help but chuckle at her own inner joke, knowing that she had to keep it to herself. That was one of her fears. That Question would one day find out that she’d had been put down this path because of a prophecy. She didn’t want him to think that she was with him only because of it. Sure, it started out that way, but now? It was more. Much more.

She shivered as her mind left the unpleasantness of prophecy and fate behind, and went back to the night before. She’d never made love quite like that, which made her think that the house had somehow amplified their experience. It was hazy and vague, and she couldn’t put her mind to any particular portion of it, but she knew that it had been amazing. They gave themselves to one another so willingly, neither being afraid or ashamed of any part of the other. It had been..erotic to say the least.

‘He absolutely screwed our brains out and then back in’ her inner voice says, and she bites her lip, not even fighting dirty Zee anymore. She reaches out and caresses the man’s cheek, leaning up to kiss under his jawline. He begins to stir and she stops, not wanting him to waken just yet. She still had to test something further.

“Peels” she whispers, sitting up in the bed and placing her hands on either side of his head, lulling the man back into the land of morpheus. She had one more thing to add though, wanting him to be primed for one last repeat performance before going on League duty.    
  
As he falls deeper into himself she plants another magical suggestion into his mind. “Evah ythguan smaerd fo em” she whispers, and a smile and a blush instantly spread across his face. “Zee...you’re wearing...that?” he whispers, obviously appreciating whatever it was that his mind and her spell had conjured up for her. “Ohh, my boyfriend likes lingerie I’m assuming? Well, lucky for you I’m a showman” she says with a wink, sure that her spell would hold. 

Now was the more difficult part. She puts her hand over her heart, just under her breast, and moves another onto his own. “Laevar ruo dnob”. Instantly a bright light appears over both of their chests, though it was encased in her hand in both cases. She slowly begins to pull the light out of her own chest, and it makes her giggle, being rather ticklish in the extraction. She does the same with Vic, gently coaxing the tendril of light forward. “Come on sweetie, I won’t hurt you” she says. “Just wanna introduce you to someone so I can confirm something”.

The tendril, which seemed to have a mind of it’s own now, seems to understand, and tepidly moves forward. It was a rather strange sight, though Zatanna was used to strange. She releases her own light, removing her hand as the tendril makes to go back into her. “No, no!” she coxes, petting its head. “You come on out and meet someone”.

The light emanating from Vic’s chest moves forward, seeming to almost be sniffing the still cowering, but now very interested one from Zee. Her’s moves out and brushes against Vic’s which returns the favor. They begin to reverberate, almost communicating their happiness at finding one another. Slowly, they wrap around each other, forming a perfect knot.

Zee was smiling wide at the notion, loving the fact that the physical representations of their souls were getting along. It hinted at an ability to make it work. But her smile only got wider as she saw what happened next. The two turn a deep red, blood red, and seem to lock into each other even more. The breath is almost knocked out of her, and her hand tepidly moves up to her mouth, trying to contain the smile that didn’t wish to be hidden. She reaches out with both hands, wanting to perform one final test. She grabs the shaft of both spirit tubes right before the point where they were tied. She gives it a slight yank, almost afraid that what she didn’t want to happen would.

The two don’t give way, and Zee tugs harder, wanting to further test it. Nada on the second try. The third she gives it all her strength and even wants to test her magic against it. “Etarapes” she intones. 

The knot does nothing, and it makes Zatanna want to jump for joy. ‘Soulmates! We’re soulmates!’ she screams mentally, ecstatic at the very thought of having a soulmate. It was theorized that everyone had a soul mate, but in ninety nine percent of cases, they never met them. Nobody knew why it was like that. Some religious attuned magicians thought it a trick of God or gods, punishment for the sins of mankind. Others? Just a game the universe played. A few dismissed the very notion of soul mates all together. 

Zee had been in the latter camp unfortunately. She’d become very jaded when it came to love and the idea of soul mates. Bruce had been reserved, and kept her out of some of the most important aspects of his life. Vic wasn’t like that. He was the same man in and out of the mask. Maybe he was too honest to change between the two. She wasn’t sure. John? Well...John was too buy pretending to be an utter bastard to actually let the good inside of him shine out. 

It showed in everything they did. Vic was embarrassed by public contact, but he wouldn’t shy away from it. “Soul mates” she whispers once more, savoring the word and how it applied to the two of them now. 

The magic slowly begins to fade, and the tendrils begin to retract into their owners respective chests, though they both give the other one final nuzzle. They disappear, but the fact of their existence and their linkage to one another remains. 

Zee looks down at Vic, the man still having his very pleasant dream and being none the wiser. If the lump in the blanket was any indication, it was a very, very pleasant dream. A kiss to his cheek is quickly delivered, while Zee drapes her body over his own, threading her leg over his. “Vic” she whispers, continuing to kiss and nuzzle his face. “Vic, wake up sweetie”.

His eyes slowly open and he blinks a few time before fully opening his eyes, which of course instantly land on Zee. She scoots up, straddling his waist now while looking deeply into his eyes. “Morning”.

He chuckles lightly and reaches up, caressing her face. “Morning”. Before she can react he leans in and kisses her, his lips massaging hers while his free arm wraps about her waist, turning them in bed. She practically growls in desire, loving that he was just going to take her right then and now. “Ohh somebody’s...ohh yes, right there baby! Excited” she coos, feeling his hand snake lower to cup her breast lovingly. 

“For you? Always”.

He begins to move lower, kissing over her neck and clavicle. It causes her to moan and bit her lip, making to move upwards to sit up in bed. “Vic what are you...unnnf”. His mouth wraps about her nipple, lightly sucking her sensitive nub into his mouth as he pushes her back down by the shoulders. He looks up at her hungrily, moving lower over her stomach, and yet, even lower still. Soon, she isn’t asking anymore questions, and is instead just moaning in pure ecstasy as her soul mate pleasures her.

**_One Hour Later_ **

She had a dopey smile on her face as she rests her head on his chest and Vic just looked self satisfied. “Wow…”.

“Thank you”.

She looks up at him and smiles wider, kissing him deeply. When she pulls away she wants to tease him while also gaining the information that she wanted. “Now...what were you dreaming about when I woke up?”

“Well...you”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course you were dreaming about me. I’m awesome” she says, poking his chest with her finger. “Butttttt...you said something rather specific”.

His eyes go a little wide and he tries to turn his head to look away. She reaches up and turns him back to look at her with her hand on his chin. “Uh uh uh...no hiding anything from your sorceress girlfriend” she says.

“Well...it was just a stupid little thing”.

“If you liked it so much, which, judging from what just happened, you did, it isn’t stupid. Tell me. I heard you say something about me wearing something for you” she says, waggling her eyebrows at him. “You know, whatever it is...I could probably summon it for us here at the house” she whispers into his ear.

“Well….I don’t want you to…”.

“I’m not going to be offended Vic. Especially if its….let me guess, lingerie and roleplay hmm?”

“How’d you know?” he asks, a little shocked at how she’d come up with the answer so quick.

“A magician never reveals her tricks” she teases, pointing to her head. “You should ask me though” she continues, idly playing with his chest. “You never know, I might be into it. I am a performer after all”.

“Your first act was in Las Vegas thirteen years ago. You were twelve years old and served as your father’s assistant”.

She looked up at him in shock, having expected the last thing out of his mouth to be that. “How...how did you know that?”

“Was I not supposed to?” he asks, genuinely not knowing if he was in trouble or not. She couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head. “No, no it’s fine that you do it’s just...I guess I’m shocked. How did you learn about that?”

“I read your file”.

‘Of course’ she thinks, rolling her eyes. “Vic...if you want to learn about me...can you ask instead? I know you’re used to going behind everyone’s back, but if you can make my eyes roll into the back of my head with your tongue I think you can ask me about my past”.

The man blushes profusely, still not being quite used to how open and flirtatious she was with him. But he’s able to recover much faster after more exposure. “Alright. Tell me about how it was”.

“You want me to talk about my days as a Las Vegas performer?” she asks, half skeptically. “It’s nowhere near as interesting as when I become a Leaguer”.

“It’s you, so of course I’m interested”.

The words warm her heart, and for the first time in a long time she feels like she’d actually be heard and listened to. So, she begins, all the way from the start. How her and her father Giovanni Zatara set out as performers. She went over it all, even though she was sure that he knew it. Still he let her tell him. Her mother’s death, which he held her a little closer as she told him about her.

“She sounds like a beautiful person”.

“She was” she sniffles, unable to help it. “She was. Dad...well, dad never really got over her. She was the love of his life”.

“Sounds like it. That had to be hard”.

She smiles sadly and looks back at him, wanting to move onto happier times. “After that, dad and I were on our own, and I kind of became just like him. Wanting to make the crowd laugh and smile, amaze them with tricks and what not. It was always a lot of fun. We became close, we only really had each other for the longest time. He...he really would’ve liked you though”.

“Ohh? Why is that?”

“Because of how easily amazed you are when it comes to magic. How open minded you are to it. He dealt with a lot of people pushing him away for his skills through his life. Being afraid of what they don’t understand. He was always afraid of that with me too. I wasn’t allowed to date until I was seventeen” she chuckles.

“A wise policy when it comes to a daughter” he says.

She frowns up at him and shakes her head. “Yup. He would’ve liked you”. She descends into giggles and tries to move closer to the man before realizing that it was impossible to any closer to him than being draped over his body as she was. “I miss it alot”.

“Performing?”

“Uhhmm”.

“Well, why don’t you try it out again?”

“Vic, I’m so busy with the League and…”.

“You’re lying” he cuts her off, causing her to askance at him. There was no anger or malice in his words or expression. Just honesty. 

“And what makes you say that?”

“You can move yourself anywhere, portal this way and that. You live in a home that doesn’t even technically exist on our plane of reality. The League has gotten so big that our roster allows us to work in shifts that give each of us lots of free time to pursue our own goals and dreams. Tell me what’s really keeping you back”.

He caresses her cheek with his thumb, looking into her eyes.

“I...I’m afraid” she admits.

“Of what?”

“That it wouldn’t be the same...without my dad. That...well...the magic would be gone”.

“I think it would be the exact opposite” he says. “I think it would keep you in touch with your heritage and make you happy. Your dad would be too”.

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. Zee...if something makes you happy, really happy, you should do it. I also saw a video someone took of your last show. I think you’re amazing. You have a real mastery when it comes to awing the crowd”.

She looks down and bites her lip, mulling over what he was saying. “So, I can juggle being a superhero and a performer? Even after a five year hiatus?”.

“I think so”.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you’re the beautiful, flirtatious, amazing, Zatanna Zatara” he teases, using her tagline from the last show, a slight smile gracing his lips. She gasps in shock, descending into laughter as she lightly punches his shoulder. “Ohh god, why did you have to bring that up? Uggggh I looked so ridiculous that day”.

“I thought you were kind of cute” he says, getting used to teasing Zee right back. “In a, awkward teenage girl sort of way”.

“Pfft...I’ll get even with you Vic. But...I think I’ll do it. Maybe start up small. A few shows back in the old country. Dad might be happy I started there”.

“Italy right?”

“Yup. My dad was born right outside of Naples. My mom was born in Milan though, but grandma was Turkish”.

“All Irish on my end, at least I think”.

“Tell me about your mom and dad? What were they like? Conspiracy nuts too?” she asks, not liking how the man’s face instantly falls at that question. “I...I don’t know what they were like” he explains. “I never met them”.

“Ohh...I’m sorry...I...Vic I….”

“It’s okay. It’s okay” he comforts, taking her hand and kissing it. “I was raised in an orphanage by nuns. Always waiting to get adopte but...well, in Hub? It’s already a poor city, hopeless. Nobody had time to worry about a red haired little orphan who couldn’t sing” he jokes, hiding his pain under a veneer of humor.

She puts her hand out in the air and says, “Laever ciV sa a dlihc”.

A portal opens in the middle of the air, and as it slowly comes into focus, stretching through time and space to give her a glimpse at her soul mate’s past. The little boy revealed within was sitting alone in a corner and she wanted to cry instantly at the look on his face. She huddles close to Vic who just looks on in a neutral way. “Ohh Vic...you were an adorable kid” she says, letting the portal close. “Thanks”.

“I know that look” she says, moving sitting up in bed and running her fingers through his hair. “The lonely look. Can I make you a promise?”

“What is it?”

“To make sure you never feel that way again” she asks. Vic smiles and sits up as well, his arm moving about her waist. “Only if I can make the same one to you”. 

She nods excitedly, the two sharing a chaste loving kiss. “So...another question for the Question” she teases, nuzzling his nose with her own. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to need a handsome assistant. I was wondering...well...would you like to do it?”

A moment of silence follows as he looks at her curiously, a slight smile forming on his face. “You’re not going to saw me in half right?”

She couldn’t help it. The way he had asked it just...she couldn’t not laugh. His face and the delivery? Too perfect. “No, no...well...maybe, but you’d be completely safe!” she defends herself, raising up her hands. “They pay won’t be that good at first but seeing as how you quit your job at the news station..”

“And how did you know I quit, let alone that I even worked at a news station?” he asks teasingly. “I did a little research of my own cutie. Also...why did you quit? You were really good”.

He shrugs. “I didn’t feel like my heart was in it anymore. Plus, the news is always lying. They wanted me to lie too. I said no and left”.

“You’re a good man Vic” she says, rubbing his face. “That means I can be your boss now!” she says excitedly. “Ohh, my boss huh?”

“Yup. You better get used to it buddy” she says, suddenly blushing and nervous. “I intend on sticking around you for a long, long time” she teases.

“That makes two of us then”. He hugs her tight to his body and kissing her lips. “But, we need to go to the Watchtower today”.

“Ugggghhh...Vic...can’t we just...sleep in?” she teases, her mind being preoccupied with anything other than sleeping. Carina was now a matter for her to really think on. ‘Our daughter!’ she thinks excitedly. The fact that they were soul mates had only cemented her desire for the man to be by her side forever. But, there was also the matter of saving the world, and to do that? Well...she didn’t mind doing whatever it took to do.

‘Maybe I should wait until we get to Rome? It would be so romantic’ she thinks.

“I wish we could Zee, but Princess Tara is still on the watchtower and…”

“I know...I know...we really should go check on her. She’s probably scared and...well...she did just lose her mother”. Zee finds herself stopping as her heart goes out to the little girl. She knew exactly what that felt like, and she had a chance to help her.

The two of them slide out of the bed, looking for their clothes when, to their shock, they find them already nicely and neatly folded on a table besides the bed. “Housie” Zee says to herself, jokingly reaching out for Vic’s hat to place it on her head. 

“Hmm, wanna trade hats handsome?” she teases, admiring herself in the mirror and flipping the brim to herself.

“Not sure I’d look as good in yours as you do in mine” he says right back, not missing a beat before giving her behind a swat. She lets out an “eep” of surprise before turning and smirking at the man. “Ha ha”.

He slips into his underwear, reaching out for his shirt. “Hmm...red panties” he says, looking at her pile of clothes. “What about them?” she asks, coming up beside him to slip on the aforementioned garment. She next reaches for her leggings, wanting to place them on after her undergarments. 

“Help me with my bra?” 

She turns her back to the man, presenting her with her bare skin as she smirks at him over her shoulder. “I’m awful with these” he says, reaching out to try and clip the hooks together. “Luckily I was around to take it off for you last night then. Otherwise you’d never have seen my breasts”.

“I would’ve found a way” he whispers against her ear before pecking her cheek, returning back to his work. She couldn’t suppress the shiver that moved through her body at how seductive that was, and she knew that if they weren’t on an important mission, they’d wind up right back in bed.

‘Nope. Making Carina wouldn’t be a hardship at all’.

**_Justice League Watchtower_ **

“She doesn’t like talking” J’onn says in his signature monotone flat voice.

“Well duh, would you in her situation?” Wally asks, standing beside the other man in the observation bay. All the princess was doing was sitting by the bay window, looking out into space. 

“You are correct”.

J’onn continued to look in on the little blonde girl, feeling the outpouring of absolute sadness that comes off of her in waves. He wanted to comfort her, but he also knew that he wasn’t the best to even try. “How is she?”

He knows of their approach before the man even speaks, and he turns to greet them with a slight smile and a nod. “Question. Zatanna. Good morning”.

“Morning J’onn” Zee says, moving to the observation window herself. 

“Poor little girl”.

“Question….we have to speak of something very important” J’onn begins tepidly, Wally taking the opportunity to zip out of there with a “uhh ohh”. 

“What is it J’onn?”

The martian begins slowly, not sure of how to exactly begin. “There has been an issue arising out of Markovian law”.

“What do you mean? Isn’t Markovia under a military junta now? And Princess Tara is a ward of the League” Zee says, turning around to face the green skinned man. “Yes. Most certainly both of those facts are true. But making her a ward of the League unfortunately has...opened up new complications”.

“Like what?”

“She needs a steward” another voice interjecting, Batman approaching from behind. Zee can’t help herself as she looks away, not enjoying being in his company with how their last interaction had gone with one another. “Batman” Vic greets in a neutral tone.

Bruce just nods at the man, returning his gaze to Zee who only tepidly returns it. “There is a subset of Markovian law that states the princess is allowed to chose her own steward in the event of the death of the reigning royal before he ascent to the throne. Usually, a council of Markovian nobleman would convene to select the steward, who would then be symbolically “chosen” by the prince or princess. The military Junta has effectively rescinded the authority of the Markovian chamber of royals. The law still stands, but there is no way for it to be carried out except by the Princess’ own decree”.

Zee tries to wrap her mind around all the jargon thrown around, but she’s stopped by Vic who just seemed to grasp the information all at once.

“Did she pick out a steward of her own yet?” he asks.

“She has” Bruce says, not adding anything more of his own volition. It was clear that he was holding something back. “And?” Zee asks, being more willing to break the deadlock than Vic was. “She picked Question”.

The words fall out of Batman’s mouth easily, but they have an effect on the two of them who both look at each other, Zee being left to discern how Vic felt, or rather attempted to, through his mask. “Why?” he asks, turning back to the Gotham based vigilante.

“Because she trusts you. She’s wise for her age. You coached her to show restraint, have a mind to the future of her kingdom and what she wanted that to mean. So, she picked you, apparently in the hopes that you’d have more to teach her”.

“She said all this?” Zee asks skeptically, not liking the idea of anyone putting words in the little girl’s mouth, especially Bruce whom she knew had a habit of doing to secure his desire outcome. “She did. I was present” J’onn says.

“Hmm” Vic says, not sure of what to say as he places his hands in his pocket and looks in on the young girl. 

“Do you accept?”

“What the hell do you mean? This is ridiculous. She needs actual help Batman. You can’t just pawn her off like she’s unwanted trash…” Zee begins, wanting to unload on her former lover but being stopped by Question.

“I’ll do it”. Without another word he opens the door to the medical bay and steps inside, allowing the door to close being him. Zee is a little shocked but whatever plan he was going for, she’d go with it. 

But she was still angry at Bruce.

**_Watchtower Medical Bay_ **

Princess Tara continued to look out the window, desperate for some sort of meaning or explanation as to why she was here at this moment. Her mother dead, her kingdom changed. Everything was different now, and she didn’t know how to fight back. 

Her powers should’ve been used to fight back against Vertigo. ‘I should’ve...I should’ve done something! Why didn’t I?’

Her thoughts are interrupted by a presence behind her, and she turns to look up at the faceless man, shocked only for a moment before she turns her head back to space. “I just want you to know that I accept the position of steward” he says in Markovian, sitting down besides the girl and joining her in looking out. Tara says nothing, and Zee...well Zee just looks on, unsure of what’s being said or even what to do.

Vic puts his hand out for the girl to take, and slowly...the blonde does. But its soon that she throws herself into the man, trying to bury her face in his trench coat. She’s crying, fiercely, unsure of her life and what was going to happen. Vic just wraps his arms about her, keeping her close. “Shhh” he whispers, trying to calm her down.

Zee moves to her other side, sitting down next the girl and placing her hand on her back as she sobs, barely holding it together. “I’ll ask Housie to get her a nice room together when we get home” she whispers to Vic.

“Zee you don’t..”

  
“Yes I do” she says, casting a small calming charm with a flick of the wrist and placing it against the girls back. Her sobs recede, but only a bit. It would do. For now.

“I know you can’t understand me, but it’ll be okay Tara. I promise”. She hugs the girl from behind while Vic keeps his own arms about her, forming a protective barrier to the outside world. The little princess couldn’t put it into words then. It would take years. But...she was thankful. More than thankful.

She wasn’t alone.


End file.
